Blackwell Reference Online

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Love is normally or ideally what cements relations wihin the family (Porot, 1954). Coexistence under the same roof and ties of blood or affiliation are not in themselves enough to build a home upon. Knowledge, love, hatred and indifference are the differential polarities which structure the emotional systems within a family. Though there is an invariant aspect in these fundamental affective oppositions, it appears that their differentiation is very largely an effect of the experience drawn from events lived through within the family of origin. Rather than propose here what might be a definition and a fortiori a ‘theory’ of what these terms convey, it is more important to identify the manner in which the various members of a family will invest these emotional aptitudes in relation to one another and the way they will conceive the categories thus created(seeF amily myths; family systems ). Love, hatred, knowledge and indifference are more or less united or split (phenomena of neurotic ambivalence, psychotic ambitendency); it is with their integration that the elaboration of transference processes begins (see T ransference ). The term ‘love’ here conveys a variety of different values; love between husband and wife, brotherly love, parental love, filial love, extrafamilial and extraconjugal love and love of oneself. The polarities of love are intrafamilial, interfamilial and extrafamilial. ... log in or subscribe to read full text