Phenomenology of Love
Phe·nom·e·nol·o·gy
an approach that concentrates on the study of
consciousness and the objects of direct experience.
Sol·i·tude- the state or situation of being alone.
Loving encounter- meeting of two persons.
Love- an intense feeling of deep affection.
Misconception of Love
1. Love conquers all.
2. Love is blind.
3. Love automatically imply pain.
4. You are obligated by someone else’s love for you.
5. Love is a 50/50 partnership.
6. Love is synonymous with sex.
 Are your palms sweaty, is your heart racing and your
voice caught within your chest?
- It isn’t love, it’s LIKE
 You can’t keep your eyes or hands off of them, am I
right?
- It isn’t love, it’s LUST
 Are you proud and eager to show them off?
- It isn’t love, it’s LUCK
 Do you want them because you know there are?
- It isn’t love, it’s LONELINESS
 Are you there because it’s what everyone wants?
- It isn’t love, it’s LOYALTY
 Does your heart ache and break when they’re sad?
- Then it’s LOVE
 Do you cry for their pain even they’re strong?
-Then it’s LOVE
 Do you accept their faults because they are a part of
who they are?
- Then it’s LOVE
 Are you attracted to others, but stay with them
faithfully without regret?
- Then it’s LOVE
 Would you give them your heart, your life, your
death?
- Then it’s LOVE
Loneliness and Love
 Before love, there is loneliness.
 Loneliness = Grief
 1 antidote to loneliness: Befriend it.
 Being alone = happiness and love
Equality in Love
 Uniformity
 50/50
 Expecting the same treatment from your partner.
 Relationship falls and flows as people's needs,
interests, and desires changes over time.
Response to the appeal of the other
THE LOVING ENCOUNTER “meeting of persons”
 An encounter between two persons or more who are
free to be themselves and choose to share themselves
(I-THOU communication)
 REQUIRES: an appeal – himself/herself (A CALL
TO PARTICIPATE IN HIS SUBJECTIVITY)
 If the appeal of the other is himself/herself, it follows
the appropriate response from me is MYSELF =
INTER-SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE
 CRUCIAL: Response and Acceptance
 WILLINGNESS: 1) personal knowledge 2)
GROWTH “in love, I must learn to wait”
“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are
made of, his and mine are the same.”
Emily Bronte
Reciprocity of Love
 Sacrifice = Fulfill and Complete SELF
 If my love is to be authentic, the gift of myself must
be something valuable to me.
 DESIRE is essential but it should not be the motive
of loving.
 the YOU in love is discovered by the lover himself.
 LOVE = GIVE & TAKE
Relationship between love of the other and love of myself
 love and trust
 opening of myself to the other= defenselessness
 there is an element of sacrifice in loving the other.
 EGOISM
 In loving the other, I need to love myself.
 There exist in loving the other the desire to be loved
in return.
Importance of Self-love in relationships
1. People treat you the way they see you treat yourself.
2. You can't depend on other people o make you feel loved.
3. A relationship should be a partnership, not a co-dependent
situation.
4. No one can make you happy the way you can make yourself
happy.
Unreciprocated Love
 Being in love to someone who does not and will
never love you back
 “One-sided love”
 Rejection of the beloved could be a test of authentic
love
 Opportunity for self-reparation
 Enriching experience
 “There is no shop in the world that sells love”
Bad News
Lack of reciprocity = PAIN (Someone who we believe is
extremely good and suitable for us does not think that we are
good enough) OUCH!
 Unrequited love - is a humiliating blow to
our self-esteem, as it reflects a significant
negative evaluation of our worth.
  Paradox of love: 1) “just” love 2) double-
standard when not wanting to love, or not
wanting to have to love.
Good News
 No doubt, reciprocity is crucial in romantic
love. However, the lack of it, and hence the end of a
romantic relationship, is not the end of the world.
Creativity in Love
 When were in love we actually think differently.
 Being in love or thinking about being in love, is
useful when you want to imagine and create things
that are out of your normal range of thinking.
Union of Love
 The we that is created in love is the union of persons
and their worlds.
 Union of love is not the joining of two-halves that
make a whole, but rather two-whole beings coming
together to create a third entity.
The Gift of Self
As describe by Manuel Dy in his Phenomenology of
love, "A gift is causing another to possess something which
hitherto you possess yourself but which the other has no strict
right to own."
The Phenomenology of love according to Manuel Dy
suggests that "Authentic love is the gift of self that does not
expect something in return."
In loving one another we cannot avoid making
sacrifice because it is primarily the essence of true love.
“I give not in order to get something in return.”
Why did I choose you and not some particular other?
Because you are lovable. You are lovable because
you are you. I see certain value in you and I want to enhance
and be part of that value.
Building lasting relationships takes work. If we focus
on love, we can enhance it.
 Melanie Greenberg, Ph.D. is a Clinical Psychologist,
and expert on Mindfulness, Managing Anxiety, and
Depression, Succeeding at Work,, and Mind-Body
Health.
Love is Historical
 Before the 18th century, many marriages were not
arranged, but rather developed out of more or less
spontaneous relationships.
 According to Giddens, the rise of romantic love more
or less coincided with the emergence of the novel. It
was then that romantic love, associated with freedom
and therefore the ideals of romantic love, created the
ties between freedom and self-realization.
 David R. Shumway states that "the discourse of
intimacy" emerged in the last third of the 20th
century, intended to explain how marriage and other
relationships worked, and making the specific case
that emotional closeness is much more important than
passion, with intimacy and romance.
 One example of the changes experienced in
relationships in the early 21st century was explored
by Giddens regarding homosexual relationships.
Freedom in Love
 "Freedom is the means by which exercising both our
reason and our will, we act on the natural longing for
truth, for goodness and for happiness that is built in
us human beings." - St. Thomas Aquinas
 If love is essentially between persons, then it follows
that love can only thrive and grow in freedom.
 Love gives you freedom, makes you free, liberates
you.
 Anything that destroys freedom is not love.
Love is Total, Eternal and Scared
LOVE IS TOTAL
 The “you” in love is indivisible. It is offered from the
totality of my being to the totality of the other's
being.
 “If you love a person, you accept the total
person. With all the defects. Because those defects
are a part of the person. Never try to change a person
you love, because the very effort to change says that
you love half, and the other half of the person is not
accepted. When you love, you simply love.”-Osho
LOVE IS ETERNAL
 The gift of myself for the other is not for a limited
period of time only.
“Time is very slow for those who wait.
Very fast for those who are scared. Very long for those who
are lament. Very short for those who celebrate. But for those
who love, time is eternal.” -William Shakespeare
LOVE IS SACRED
 The persons involved in love are unique,
irreplaceable beings and as such are valuable in
themselves.
“We enter into sacred relationship, and
that means intimacy. Intimacy is the ability to keep your heart
open over time. Sacred relationship is a commitment to
intimacy over time.”-Dr. Gabriel Cousens
“Phenomenology of love starting from encounter with
solitude into a loving encounter”