The Tyranny of Love: Love and Psychology

Abstract

In “The Tyranny of Love,” Grobbelaar and Gringart explore the role of love in psychology. Since time immemorial, philosophy, religion, art, literature, history, and psychology have contributed to the idealisation of love. Our culture has become saturated with the idealisation of love, whose features are deemed to be close to perfection—natural, spontaneous, effortless, unconditional, and benevolent. Grobbelaar and Gringart ask, how do we account for love in contexts that negate its fundamental construction, for instance in violent intimate relationships? As a socio-cultural ideal, love limits human emotional and relational expression, deeming all else inferior. To truly love is to break free of love’s tyranny and embrace the full spectrum of relationality and emotionality. With social and clinical psychology in mind, they make a case that love is a powerful social construction, ubiquitous in all societies, contextually bound, and differentiated across time periods. Although idealised and experienced as a force of nature, love is pliant and fallible, as we all are.