Psychology of sex - Total No. of Records in System :: 2032

PSYCHOLOGY OF SEXmanifested through the cerebral centers. Or, with Kant,we may say that love is the sexual impulse released fromitsbondage to periodicity and made permanent throughthe help of the imagination. Pfister, after devoting a longchapter to various definitions of love, concludes that itmay best be defined as "a feeling of attraction and a senseof self-surrender, arising out of a need, and directedtowards an object that offers hope of gratification."an inadequate definition, and so are most of such defini*tions.It isWhile love apparently becomes in its most developedforms a completely altruistic impulse, it springs out of anegoistic impulse and even when it involves self-sacrificethere is still an egoistic gratification. Freud, among others,has insisted in his Introductory Lectures on this egoisticsource (even stating elsewhere, about the same time, that"love is primarily Narcissistic") although recognizing that,love later becomes detached from its source. Putting asidethe specifically sexual element, the mother, as Freud andothers hold, is the child's first real Zow-object, althoughlater, in subjects who are not neurotic, this primary loveobjectfalls into the background, with the naturally growingprominence of other love-objects.In developing into love, the sexual impulse, which atthe outset ispredominantly egoistic, becomes also consciouslyaltruistic. There are, under normal and naturalconditions, altruistic elements from the outset of its sexualdevelopment. Without consideration for the other partner,even among animals, courtship fails, and coitus cannottake place. But with the development of love thisaltruistic element becomes conscious and highly developed;it may even lead to the complete subordination ofthe egoistic element.This process by which love isdeveloped may be said to[324]