In this presentation I discuss healthy relationships, and how to love and be loved based on neuroscience and psychology.

1. Healthy Relationships – To Love and Be Loved
Homayoun Shahri, Ph.D., M.A., LMFT
Homayoun.shahri@ravonkavi.com
http://www.ravonkavi.com

2. Through the Eyes of an Angel (Miten with Deva Premal)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPNmIBaZVfM)

3. Relationships
● Why do so many relationships end up in breakups,
separation, and/or divorce?
● Why is it that in many situations when we love our partner,
they don't love us; and when they love us, we don't love
them?
● Why is it that every relationship promises to be different,
but it ends up being very similar to the old relationships?
● Why do we repeat our patterns – like a broken record?

4. Neurochemistry of Love
● Testosterone and Estrogen – Primary sex hormones.
● Adrenalin – A hormone that is released in the body of a
person who is feeling a strong emotion (such as
excitement, fear, or anger) and that causes the heart to
beat faster and gives the person more energy.
● Dopamine – The dopamine system is strongly associated with
the reward system of the brain. Dopamine is released in areas
such as the nucleus accumbens and prefrontal cortex as a
result of experiencing natural rewards such as food, sex, and
neutral stimuli that become associated with them.

5. Neurochemistry of Love (Continued)
● Serotonin. One of love's most important chemicals that may
explain why when you’re falling in love, your new lover
keeps popping into your thoughts.
● Oxytocin – Oxytocin (The cuddle hormone) is a
neurotransmitter in mammals. Oxytocin is normally produced in
the hypothalamus and stored in the posterior pituitary gland. It is
the hormone of Love!
● Vasopressin – Vasopressin is another important hormone in the
long-term commitment stage and is released after sex.
● Oxytocin and Vasopressin are attachment and bonding
hormones.

6. Neuroscience of Love
● When a person falls in love, at least 12 areas of the brain work in
tandem to release euphoria-inducing chemicals such as dopamine,
oxytocin, adrenaline and vasopression. The love feeling also affects
sophisticated cognitive functions, such as mental representation,
metaphors and body image
● Other researchers also found blood levels of nerve growth factor, or
NGF, also increased. Those levels were significantly higher in couples
who had just fallen in love. This molecule involved plays an important
role in the social chemistry of humans.
● You can just be a loving person for your brain/body to function this
way, albeit to a lesser extent!

7. The Recognition (Irving Feldman)
Not the god, though it might have been,
savoring some notion of me
and exciting the cloud where he was hidden
with impetuous thunderstorms of summoning
– it was merely you who recognized me,
speaking my name in such a tone
I know you had been thinking it
a long, long time, and now revealed yourself
in this way. Because of this, suddenly
who I was was precious to me.

8. Winnicott on Mother – Baby Gaze
“The mother gazes at the baby in her arms, and the baby gazes
at his mother’s face and finds himself therein . . . provided that
the mother is really looking at the unique, small, helpless being
and not projecting her own expectations, fears and plans for the
child. [Otherwise] In that case, the child would find not himself in
his mother’s face, but rather the mother’s own projections. This
child would remain without a mirror, and for the rest of his life
would be seeking this mirror in vain.”

9. Attachment Strange Situation
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH1m_ZMO7GU)

10. Mirror Neurons and Vagus Nerve
● Mirror Neurons
– A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires
both when an animal acts and when
the animal observes the same action
performed by another
● Vagus Nerve
– Tenth Cranial nerve responsible for
mammalian social engagement and
freeze response, and many other
functions, such heart regulation, etc.

11. Exercise 1
● Find a partner, decide who is partner 1, and who is 2
● Two of you should find an empty spot in the room
● Partner 1, please observe your partner (posture, eyes,
energy – held together, on, up, in, or back), and see if you
can feel what your partner is feeling and what it is that they
want in life, and how they experience life
● Switch roles
● Discuss what you felt

12. An Object Relational View
● Object Permanency
– Child (Infant) must experience predictable presence of
primary care taker to feel safe and protected
● Object Constancy (Ability to integrate good and bad aspects of
object)
– Child (Infant) must experience unconditional love,
acceptance, empathy, and nonjudgmental presence of
primary care taker to feel that he is worthy of love, he is
worth it, he is good, and he is OK
– He then believes there is benevolence (goodness) in the
world, and people are generally good

13. An Object Relational View (Continued)
Infant splits the object toward whom both love and hate were directed, in two.
The good object (idealized) representation is important and is necessary to go on
in life. The bad (frustrating, repressing) object is further split into two, namely
the repressive object, and the exciting object. Ego identifies with the repressive
object (anti-libidinal self), and keeps the original object seeking drive in check.
Ego also identifies with the exciting object (libidinal self) and seeks exciting
objects in the world.
It is the idealized object that many seek initially in their relationships
(infatuation stage), which is soon replaced by power struggle (acting out of anti-
libidinal self). Some are lucky enough to transcend the power struggle stage and
enter the “co-creativity” stage.

14. Drive, Expression, and Repression
1. Unitary drive seeking expression
2. Environmental negativity
3. Drive seeking alternative expression
4. Part of drive energy seeking excitement
5. Part of drive energy repressing original expression

15. Drive, Expression, Repression, and Acting Out

16. Partners Relating via Adaptive (False) Selves

17. Partners Relating via Introjects

18. Partners Relating via Adaptive Self and Introjects

19. Exercise 2
● Find a partner and decide who is 1 and who is 2
● Partner 1 – First reach toward frustrating parent (partner 2) and say: “I
need you.” In this statement you are saying: “I need you to see me, love
me, affirm me, know me, I am your child and cannot help but need you.”
● Feel your reaction as you make this statement and let your partner in on
how as a child you stopped this needing in your body and what you said
to yourself around this. You have done this many times. Your partner will
reflect on this until you feel s/he had gotten it.
● Switch roles
● (Courtesy of Dr Robert Hilton)

20. Knots (R. D. Laing)
Once upon a time, when Jack was
lit­tle, he wanted to be with his
mummy all the time and was fright­
ened she would go away
later, when he was a lit­tle big­ger, he
wanted to be away from his mummy
and was fright­ened that she wanted
him to be with her all the time
when he grew up he fell in love with
Jill and he wanted to be with her all
the time and was fright­ened she
would go away
when he was a lit­tle older,
he did not want to be with Jill all the
time he was fright­ened that she
wanted to be with him all the time, and
that she was fright­ened that he did
not want to be with her all the time
Jack fright­ens Jill he will leave her
because he is fright­ened she will
leave him.

21. A Model Based on Transactional Analysis
● Transactional Analysis
– Theory in psychology that examines the interactions, or
"transactions", between a person and other people. The
underlying hypothesis is that humans are social
creatures and that a person is a multi­faceted being that
changes when in contact with another person in their
world.

22. Four Life Positions
● I'm OK and you are OK. This is the healthiest position about life and it means that I
feel good about myself and that I feel good about others and their competence.
● I'm OK and you are not OK. In this position I feel good about myself but I see
others as damaged or less than and it is usually not healthy.
● I'm not OK and you are OK. In this position the person sees him/herself as the
weak partner in relationships as the others in life are definitely better than the self.
The person who holds this position will unconsciously accept abuse as OK.
● I'm not OK and you are not OK. This is the worst position to be in as it means that I
believe that I am in a terrible state and the rest of the world is as bad.
Consequently there is no hope for any ultimate support.

23. Concepts in Transactional Analysis

24. Ghosts (Mary Oliver)
Only once, and then in a dream,
I watched while, secretly
and with the tenderness of any caring woman,
a cow gave birth
to a red calf, tongued him dry and nursed him
in a warm corner
of the clear night
in the fragrant grass
in the wild domains
of the prairie spring, and I asked them,
in my dream I knelt down and asked them
to make room for me.

25. Fear of Intimacy
● Love is not only hard to find, but strange as it may seem, it can be even more
difficult to accept and tolerate. Most of us say that we want to find a loving partner,
but many of us have deep-seated fears of intimacy that make it difficult to be in a
close relationship.
● Fear of intimacy begins to develop early in life. As children, when we experience
rejection and/or emotional pain, we often shut down. We learn not to rely on others
as a coping mechanism. After being hurt in our earliest relationships, we fear being
hurt again. We are reluctant to take another chance on being loved.
● If we felt unseen or misunderstood as children, we may have a hard time believing
that someone could really love and value us. Or if we do believe they love us, we
find all kinds of reasons why they are not the “right” person for us.

26. Fear of Intimacy (Continued)
● To love
– It is painful to love someone when they don't love us. This is more familiar
to us, but painful nonetheless. This is about re-experiencing the pain of
deprivation from early contact and holding.
● To be loved
– It is much more painful to be loved – to open ourselves to love, be
vulnerable, and let go of our defenses. This is about re-experiencing the
pain of heartbreak (if we risk going there). Our defense mechanism may
respond with rejection (rejecting the loving object). This is also much
harder to perceive and imagine. There may be a tendency of wanting to
pull back and go away, to feel weired in your body, to feel shame, to
contact in our chest, etc.

27. Exercise 3
● Find a partner and decide who is 1 and who is 2
● Partner 1 places one hand on his/her heart and with the other hand slightly pushes
against the outstretched hand of his/her partner who his other hand on his/her heart.
● Partner 1 says: “This is my heart, my life and you can't have it.”
● Partner 2 says: “I want you to have your life. I only want to be available to you if you
want it.”
● Partner 2 then says: “I don't want you to be alone anymore.”
● Partner 1 pays attention to his feelings and what s/he is experiencing (fear, anxiety,
sadness, love, longing)
● Reverse roles.
Courtesy of Dr Robert Hilton (modified version)

28. Healthy Love
● Erich Fromm
– Infantile love follows the principle: I love because I am loved!
– Mature love follows the principle: I am loved because I love!
– Immature love says: I love you because I need you!
– Mature love says: I need you because I love you!
– Paradoxically, the ability to be alone is the condition for the ability to love

29. Healthy Love (Continued)
● Message to the lover: I love you and you are free to go; it will be
difficult for me and I will be sad. And you must love me else I will go;
it will be difficult for me and I will be sad.
Come, come, whoever you are!
Wanderer, idolater, worshiper of fire,
Come even though you have been broken a hundred times!
Come, and come again,
Ours is not a caravan of despair!
- Rumi

30. Healthy Love – Taking Risks
● Donald Kalsched (Trauma and the Soul):
– The act of loving is a terrible risk for everyone, and especially for
people who have grown up in emotionally impoverished
environments. To really love someone (without symbiotically
attaching to them through identification), is to risk losing them,
precisely because we live in an insecure, unpredictable world in
which death, separation, or abandonment is an ever present reality.
“You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens”
Rumi

31. Vas – Offerings (Leyli – Azam Ali)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bltffVLFaro)