On Valentine's Day, I would like to share the following thoughts on love
and compassion from various poets, philosophers, scientists and
psychoanalysts:

Rilke (1984): “For one human being to love another human being; that is
perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the
ultimate task, the final test and proof, for which all other work is
merely preparation” (p.68).

In a fascinating volume of a scientific dialogue between the Dalai Lama
and Western scientists (“Destructive Emotions: How Can We Overcome Them? :
A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama” narrated by Daniel Goleman,
2003, Bantam Books), Tibetan monks have been subjected to various
neuroimaging techniques (eg, fMRI) in order to explore the effects of such
processes as meditation, e.g., on compassion for all beings including
enemies, on neural functioning. Richard Davidson, of the Keck Lab for
Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior at the Madison campus of the
University of Wisconsin, along with Paul Eckman at the University of
California at San Francisco, were some of the investigators. In brief,
what they found was quite astonishing. The researchers found that a
compassionate state of mind shifts neural activation from the right middle
frontal gyrus [associated with chronic states of dysphoria, e.g., depression
and anxiety], to the left middle frontal gyrus [associated with states of
pleasure, happiness, etc]. Compassion, as the Dalai Lama pointed out is
also good for the one who experiences and acts compassionately towards
others.

Ludwig Binswanger believed that the reciprocal love relation, or
dual mode of love, constituted the highest and most original form of human
existence. An excellent source for Binswanger's thoughts on love can be
found in Roger Frie (1997) "Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity in Modern
Philosophy and Psychoanalysis" published by Rowan & Littlefield.

Binswanger: “To love is inevitably to enter into an undivided situation
with another. From the moment one is joined with someone else...One is
not what he would be without that love; the perspectives remain
separate-and yet they overlap” (p.92). Binswanger believed that in the
dual mode of love, the I can only recognize a Thou through an encounter
based on mutuality and reciprocity.

From a more theological perspective, and with great
psychotherapeutic import, Martin Buber's "I and Thou" is a must read. As
is Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov."

Sheldon Bach (2006), in his recent volume “Getting From Here To There:
Analytic Love, Analytic Process,” reminds us of Freud’s view (expressed
in a letter to Carl Jung and about a month later at a meeting of the
Vienna Psychoanalytic Society) that psychoanalysis is a cure effected
through love. Freud once told Max Eitigon that the “secret of therapy is
to cure through love (Grotjahn, 1967, p. 445). Bach (2006) refers to his
friend Irving Steingart’s viewpoint that an analyst must learn to
understand and love the patient’s psychic reality. Bach adds that the
patient also comes, in fortunate circumstances, to understand and love the
analyst’s psychic reality. He also notes the importance of having access
to one’s hateful and loving feelings in order to maintain one’s
narcissistic balance and mental health-which includes understanding and
respecting the patient’s hate. Bach notes: “...in my view, if...patients
do in fact fall in love with their psychoanalyst, then they are very
lucky indeed. For if they have truly fallen in love with their analyst,
then their analyst is very likely to have fallen in love with them, and
when this happens, then the world becomes enchanted again.”

Other analytic articles/books on the subject of love and compassion:

Daniel Shaw (2003). On the therapeutic action of analytic love.
Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 251-278.

Joseph Natterson (2003). Love in psychotherapy. Psychoanalytic
Psychotherapy, 20 (3),509-521.

Janet Sayers (2003). Divine Therapy: Love, Mysticism and Psychoanalysis.
NY:Oxford University Press. This volume has chapters on Freud and freeing
love, Marion Milner and recovering mysticism, Paul Tillich on being
accepted, and Julia Kristeva on mothering.

Despite his aversion to quantum reality, Einstein believed : "A
human being is part of the whole, called by us the 'Universe,' a part
limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and
feelings, as something separate from the rest-- a kind of optical delusion
in his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us,
restricting us to our personal decisions and to affection for a few
persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this
prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living,
creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve
this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part
of the liberation and a foundation for inner security."

Happy Valentine's Day to all.

Brian Koehler