Desire, Love & Attachment Styles
Romance and eroticism in the age of the internet
with Alison Feit, PhD
Join Us on Wednesdays, November 2 and 9 at 7:30 p.m.
Intermediate / Location TBD / 3 credits
Price: $75
This course will focus on the psychology and biology of desire, love and attachment. We will discuss the ways in which childhood attachment patterns which are developed very early in life are thought to inform adult attachment styles to romantic partners as adults . We will try to understand some of the major theories of human mate selection and their relationship to monogamy and infidelity. Particular attention will be paid to the neurobiologic underpinnings of mate selection and the ways in which it unconsciously influences desire. The course will conclude with the role of self-awareness and how it can shift one’s relationship attachment style towards more healthy attachment – the bedrock for securely attached bonded partnerships.
Objectives:
Participants will be able to label different attachment styles developed in childhood in relation to their parents and their impact on later attachment styles (and the ability to form secure and meaningful connection with others).
Participants will be able to identify unhealthy and unfulfilling romantic attachment patterns in adults and the ways in which they are impacted by attachment styles developed early in development.
Participants will be able to isolate ‘enactments’ in later life and to begin to develop ‘alternative scripts’ based on healthier means of meaningful romantic engagement with others.,
Readings:
Goldner, V. (2006) “Let’s Do It Again”: Further Reflections on Eros and Attachment. Psychoanalytic Dialogues 16:619-637
Connors, M. E. (2000) Chapter 11 Dimensions of Experience in Relationship Seeking. Progress in Self-Psychology 16:199-216
Osofsky, J. D. (1995) Perspectives on Attachment and Psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic Psychology 12:347-362