A Psychosocial Exploration of Love and Intimacy

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-viii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. The Demise of Romantic Love?

      • Joanne Brown

      Pages 3-14

   3. A Psychosocial Approach to Emotional Life

      • Joanne Brown

      Pages 15-26

3. Love Ideals

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 27-27

      PDF

   2. Modern Love

      • Joanne Brown

      Pages 29-55

   3. Love as Bad Faith

      • Joanne Brown

      Pages 56-73

   4. Transference Love

      • Joanne Brown

      Pages 74-98

   5. Reparative Love

      • Joanne Brown

      Pages 99-117

   6. Reflexive Love

      • Joanne Brown

      Pages 118-126

4. Methods and Findings

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 127-127

      PDF

   2. A Psychosocial Approach to Narrative Studies and Reflexive Research

      • Joanne Brown

      Pages 129-159

   3. Personal Accounts of Love Details of Method

      • Joanne Brown

      Pages 160-169

   4. Love and War

      • Joanne Brown

      Pages 170-194

   5. Love and Peace

      • Joanne Brown

      Pages 195-220

5. Conclusion

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 221-221

      PDF

   2. Conclusion

      • Joanne Brown

      Pages 223-226

6. Back Matter

   Pages 227-258

   PDF

Organised around a single question: is love possible?, Brown's book provides conceptualisations of love and its possibility from sociological, philosophical and psychoanalytic viewpoints. She argues for the importance of a psychosocial understanding of love and provides a critical discussion of the philosophy and methods of Psychosocial Studies.

• emotion
• methods
• philosophy
• sociology

"Brown...provide[s] insightful reflections on the phenomenology of love...and offers a helpful reflection on the links between ethnography and psychoanalysis. Overall, Brown's foray into the chaotic and poetic sources of love and its role in society serves as a valuable contrast to currently fashionable quantatative and neurological reductionism." - C.J. Churchill, St. Thomas Aquinas College, Choice Magazine

JOANNE BROWN is a Lecturer in Mental Health at Southampton University, UK. She taught for many years in the Psychosocial Studies subject area at the University of East London. Her research interests and publications are informed by a disciplinary approach that combines socio-cultural theory and methods with psychoanalytic theory.

Policies and ethics