Love and War

Abstract

We have seen in Chapters 3–7 what sociological, psychological and philosophical approaches offer in answer to the question: ‘what is this thing called love?. As explained in Chapter 9, three statements have been deduced from these ways of seeing love:

• 1. Romantic love is being deconstructed and the question of whether love is possible or impossible is being struggled with.

• 2. A transformation of intimacy is occurring that is characterised by psychosocial reflexivity and de-traditionalised expectations from love and relationships.

• 3. A psychosocial interpretation of transcripts about love can address the weakness of an exclusively psychoanalytic or socio-cultural interpretive strategy.¹