具体描述
"Love is a central condition of human
existence. We need it for survival; we seek
it for pleasure; we require it to lend mean-
ing and purpose to ordinary existence;
we suffer its loss with grief and often
despair."
So begins Rediscovering Love, Willard
Gaylin s culminating masterwork and
the most important book on the subject
since Erich Fromm s The Art of Loving.
The author of the bestseller Feelings,
Dr. Gaylin contends that we are close
to creating a loveless world. Orthodox
Freudian psychology has managed to
reduce love to an adjunct of the sexual
drive, while the rise of American individ-
ualism has replaced the ability to love
with a narcissistic appetite to be loved. He
elucidates the social and intellectual roots
of this emotional crisis, and then under-
takes nothing less than a rehabilitation of
love as a central human experience and a
stirring defense of the role of romance and
the imagination in loving.
Dr. Gaylin unapologetieally declares
himself "an optimist and a romantic."
t te wants to elevate the idea of genuine
pleasure above the mere satisfaction of
appetite. He is unashamed in his advocacy
for commitment. And he writes for the
educated lay audience with consummate
ease and literacy, drawing dozens of
telling, touching examples from the great-
est writers, both classic and modern.
