How do you know if it's friendship or love? The edge of love and friendship Relationship psychology love friendship trust

MINISTRY OF HEALTH OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

State budget educational institution

higher professional education

Yaroslavl State Medical Academy

GBOU VPO YAGMU of the Ministry of Health of Russia

FACULTY OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Department of Clinical Psychology and Social Work

ESSAY

Social relations. Friendship and love.

Work completed:

2nd year student

full-time department

Yaselskaya Galina Igorevna

Checked work:

Zolotova Irina Alexandrovna

Yaroslavl - 2016

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..3

Chapter 1. Friendship…………………………………………………………………….5

1.1. Types, types and varieties of friendship……………………………………… 7

Chapter 2. Love…………………………………………………………………… 13

2.1. Love and love addiction…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Chapter 3

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………..24

References………………………………………………………………26

Introduction

The topic of social relations concerns everyone and everyone, simply because there is no normal development of a person without being surrounded by society. To be recognized by society is one of the key human needs.

Any relationship that arises between social groups, as well as members of these groups, is recognized as social. Social relations relate to almost everything that surrounds a person. Wherever he works and where he does not carry out his activities, he will always be involved in certain social relations.

The concept of social relations in practice has a strong connection with social roles. As a rule, a person entering into certain social relations appears in them in a certain social role, whether it be a professional, national or gender role.

In addition to the relations that arise between people, all forms that these relations take are social. People are compelled to enter into these relationships not only due to the need for belonging, but also due to material and spiritual needs that they simply cannot satisfy alone.

Social relations can be divided into types, based on the areas of activity in which people manifest themselves. These are production, economic, political, aesthetic, psychological, interpersonal. The latter, for example, can be classified as friendly, comradely, love, family relations. In interpersonal relationships, a person most clearly manifests himself as a person and is most involved in relationships.

Psychological relations are more characterized by the attitude of the individual to himself and his reaction to external stimuli or objects. There is also a symbiosis of social and psychological relations, usually resulting in the interaction of members of society from the standpoint of their individual psychological characteristics. For example, friendship - enmity, leadership - conformity and more. There is a place to talk about role relations when certain roles of the participants are clearly spelled out in them, and there is also a certain functionally organized relationship between them.

Communicative relationships allow members of society to exchange information and play an important role in the life of society. Emotional relationships of people are characterized on the basis of their mutual attractiveness or, conversely, alienation. Moreover, this attraction can be both psychological and physical. Moral relationships also play an important role in people's relationships, that is, the assessment of each other's behavior and actions from the standpoint of understanding good and evil.

Love and friendship is a special category of interpersonal relationships, the most difficult. Complexity is caused by our choice, conscious or unconscious. These feelings arise between two or more people on the principle of mutual sympathy, common interests or goals. Friendship and love are the greatest wealth of a person.

Chapter 1. Friendship

Friendships are an indicator of how interesting, important and valuable people are to each other. The main qualitative indicators of friendship are such things as trust, tolerance, mutual understanding, mutual respect, the ability to meet and help, to be there in a difficult situation. True friendship is something much more than just pleasant communication in a cheerful company. It is even a kind of sacrament between people.

True friends, due to the fact that they know each other perfectly (and sometimes for some other reason) are able to understand each other at a distance, without words, by hand movements, eye expressions, facial expressions, gestures. Sometimes it even happens that friends who have gone through “fire, water and copper pipes” together have some kind of invisible, like a telepathic connection: one can know what the other is thinking, the second can predict the actions of the first, etc.

A friend is someone who cares about you. The one who pays attention to you, supports, participates in your life, is not indifferent to your emotions, problems, successes, victories and defeats. A friend is someone who will put any point of view behind his belt and go forward for the benefit not of himself, but of you - his friend.

The meaning and value of friendly relations consists of the fact that everyone can rely on the other in any situation or provide the necessary support and assistance. Loyalty, perseverance, equality, understanding, acceptance of each other with all the positive features and shortcomings reign in friendly relations. And if, for example, in a love relationship there can be disagreements and misunderstandings, because of which two people can part, friendships do not accept this. Here no one says: "And I, and you, but I, and here you are." And even in those cases when one, so to speak, invests more of himself in friendship than the other, the feeling of friendship remains mutual and confidence in the other person remains.

When people are friends, each of them will not hesitate to experience with the other both moments of joy and happiness, as well as difficult situations, troubles and failures. In friendship, each understands that he plays a very important role in the life of another. That is why friends trust each other with their plans, dreams, thoughts, ideas, secrets and secrets, sometimes even life. The greater and deeper the trust and respect between people, the stronger and stronger their friendship. It cannot be measured either by the amount of money or by any merit. She is priceless. And only a true friend, if he really is in your life, lets you know that you are not alone, and gives you strength. This is a man for all occasions.

Friendship also shows the inner strength of a person, his qualities. And often this is what becomes an indicator, because. the person reveals himself. People who have not passed the strength test move from the category of friends to the category of good acquaintances, and sometimes to the category of those with whom you just once knew, and now absolutely nothing connects you. If there is someone in life whom you really feel, with whom you can be yourself without wearing masks, and who understands you and always helps you out, for sure this person is your real friend. And relations with him should be protected and preserved, because they are truly more precious than gold.

You can't choose a friend - he just becomes a friend. It does not matter what his appearance, habits, worldview. You may not like something about him, you may even criticize him from time to time. But when all the beautiful and good ones run away somewhere and wave their hands, when none of them have time left for you, it is this person who will be next to you and will do what no one else had the strength, desire to do. or courage.

Friendship is a test. On the surface, it may seem that it does not require effort, care and protection. In fact, it will never exist without our direct participation, because treating another even better than yourself is a great thing. It is for this reason that we can safely say that friendship has its own special laws, no matter how strange, too loud or naive it may sound. These life principles are the conditions for the existence of friendly relations. And they must be observed by everyone who wants to have a friend or friends, and who considers himself a true friend.

1.1. Types, types and varieties of friendship

Friendship can be divided into three types according to age categories: children's, youth and adult. Here we consider only youthful and adult. Youth friendship.

Youth is the period of the most intense and emotional communication with peers, group life, etc.

At the heart of the youthful craving for friendship is a passionate need for understanding the other and oneself to others and self-disclosure. “Happiness is when you are understood,” says the young hero of the film “Let's Live Until Monday”.

One of the main unconscious functions of youthful friendship is the maintenance of self-respect. Friendship sometimes acts as a kind of psychotherapy, allowing young people to express overwhelming feelings and find confirmation that someone shares their doubts, hopes and anxieties.

Youthful friendship is not only prone to confession, but also extremely emotional. And emotionality is expressed not so much in words and sentences, but in characteristic intonations, accents, reticence, omissions, which a teenager, with all his desire, could not translate into concepts, but which convey to his friend-interlocutor the finest nuances of his moods, remaining meaningless and incomprehensible for an outside listener. This "empty" conversation is psychologically more important and significant than the "meaningful" secular conversation about lofty matters. Needing strong emotional attachments, young people sometimes do not notice the real properties of a partner. For all their exclusivity, friendships in such cases are usually short-lived.

The ratio of friendship and love is a difficult problem in youth. On the one hand, these relationships seem to be more or less alternative. The appearance of a beloved girl reduces the emotional intensity of same-sex friendship, a friend becomes more of a good comrade. On the other hand, love involves a greater degree of intimacy than friendship, it kind of includes friendship.

Adult friendship.

In youth, friendship, as we have seen, occupies a privileged, even monopoly, position in the system of personal relationships and affections. With the advent of new, "adult" attachments, friendship gradually loses its privileged position.

Three points are especially important for understanding the psychological differences between adult friendship and youthful friendship: 1) the relative completion of the formation of self-awareness; 2) expansion and differentiation of the sphere of communication and activity; 3) the emergence of new intimate attachments.

The content and structure of friendly communication are also changing. Tolerance for differences is one of the main indicators of the level of culture and intellectual development. This also shows up in communication. Childhood friendships can fall apart over a trifle. Young men are already ready to put up with the particular shortcomings of their friends, but friendship itself is still understood as something total.

types of friendship.

Spiritual friendship is mutual enrichment and complementation of each other. Each is delighted and fascinated by the superiority of the other. Thus, he gives his friend the opportunity to receive such a desired recognition: what could be more beautiful if you are appreciated and understood by the one for whom you recognize this right. The most amazing thing is that everyone feels completely different from the other and admires precisely those qualities that he himself does not have.

Creative friendship - both friends retain their pronounced individuality. Moreover, friendship helps to creatively complement the personality of each of the friends, to give a complete character to their individuality.

Everyday friendship can exist and develop only under the condition of immediate territorial proximity. Friends must live nearby, provide each other with services, ask for help, go to the movies together, or at least just chat about this and that. As a rule, such friendship is reinforced by some constant reason for meetings. It can be a normal neighborhood or a common job. Doctors, for example, are most often friends with doctors.

Family friendship at first glance seems to be the complete opposite of creative friendship, but it is not. It is characteristic of the type of friendship we are considering that our friend, in essence, becomes a friend of the whole family. And if we are talking about a married couple who have children, we can clearly talk about friendship with families.

Kinds of friendship.

The concept of romantic friendship is extremely vague. It either denotes the friendship of the era of romanticism, including the period of “storm and stress” that preceded it, or it correlates with specific ideas about friendship that were in circulation in the circle of German romantic poets, or it is associated with the psychological type of the “romantic personality”. If we ignore the psychological nuances, the romantic canon of friendship meant, firstly, a sharp increase in the requirements for its intimacy and expressiveness, and, secondly, the association of “true friendship” with that part of a person’s life that falls on youth.

In erotic friendship there is no place for seduction and the desire to control the fate of another, to have power over him. True erotic friendship is a disinterested, noble impulse aimed at improving yourself and helping another in this. Without petty calculations of all the pros and cons, without the desire to hold, command, influence, direct. A friend receives his friend with love and tries to please him. It doesn't matter if he was waiting for him, or if he came unexpectedly. A friend gives without asking for anything in return and receives without asking for anything. If erotica manages to master all this, and sometimes it succeeds, it can live next to friendship. Otherwise, it destroys it. The emergence of friendship. Meeting.

We may have great relationships throughout our lives with neighbors or work colleagues, but none of them will become our friends. And at the same time, we can consider a friend or girlfriend of a person with whom we have seen only once or twice and who lives far from us. It turns out, however, that only with him we feel good and want to show the best that we have.

Friendship arises as a break in the usual course of events, as a leap. At some point, we suddenly begin to experience a strong surge of sympathy, interest in another person, he becomes close to us. If we have known him for a long time, there is a feeling that we saw him for the first time in our lives. Let's call this a meeting. A meeting is a final event, a bunch of time. For friendship, only these moments of the highest intensity of life are important. Whatever happens in between doesn't matter. Such a meeting is always a surprise, always a discovery. For most of our acquaintances, we will never take this first step on the road to friendship.

Friendship is a complex interweaving of meetings, and each meeting is a test, it can bring success and disappointment. Unlike falling in love, we may not even think about a friend from meeting to meeting.

Chapter 2

Love is an emotional feeling inherent in a person, a deep, selfless and intimate attachment to another person or object.

Love is one of the fundamental and common themes in world culture and art. Discourses about love and its analysis as a phenomenon go back to the most ancient philosophical systems and literary monuments known to man.

Love is also considered as a philosophical category, in the form of a subjective relationship, an intimate selective feeling directed at the object of love. Love is a complex psychological phenomenon that arises as a clash between the individual and society, the base and the sublime, the spiritual and the physical.

The complexity and dialectical diversity of love has given rise to a significant number of interpretations of the phenomenon in various languages and cultures throughout the history of human society.

One of the first classifications of forms of love goes back to its understanding in ancient Greek philosophy, which shared such types of love as:

"Eros" - spontaneous, enthusiastic love, in the form of reverence directed at the object of love;

"Filia" - love-friendship or love-affection by conscious choice;

"Storge" - love-tenderness, especially family;

Agape means sacrificial love.

Aristotle's concept of love is rather carnal; he attributed love to one of the primary energies of the human body. Plato, in his treatise "Feast", introduces a significantly different formulation of the assertion of the connection between love and knowledge. Love is a process of continuous movement. Platonic eros is the eros of knowledge.

A different meaning was put into the concept by Sufi philosophers and writers of Persia and the Arab East during the Middle Ages. Thus, in the poetry of Omar Khayyam and Alisher Navoi, love in the spirit of the Sufi tradition is identified with wine. Wine poured into a vessel, that is, into a mortal human shell, fills people with a spiritual component, dialectically introducing the concept of love for God.

In the Middle Ages, during the Renaissance, through the works of Marsilio Ficino, Francesco Cattani, Giordano Bruno and others, the course of Neoplatonism begins to develop. At the heart of this love philosophy is the doctrine of beauty. The nature of love is the desire for beauty. This concept links ethics and aesthetics and has a significant impact on the art of the Renaissance.

In the 20th century, love gradually becomes the subject of rigorous scientific study. The relationship between love and sexuality is at the heart of Sigmund Freud's work. According to Freud, love is an irrational concept, from which the spiritual principle is excluded. Love in the theory of sublimation developed by Freud is reduced to primitive sexuality, which is one of the main stimuli for human development.

Subsequently, attempts were made to develop Freud's theory and move from a pure biological description to a social and cultural component as the basis of the phenomenon. This new direction, born in the United States, was called neo-Freudianism. One of the leaders of neo-Freudianism is the psychoanalyst Erich Fromm.

Erich Fromm compares two opposite forms of love: love according to the principle of being or fruitful love, and love according to the principle of possession or unfruitful love. If the first “involves the manifestation of interest and care, knowledge, emotional response, expression of feelings, pleasure, and can be directed to a person, a tree, a picture, an idea. It excites and enhances the feeling of fullness of life. This is a process of self-renewal and self-enrichment, ”the second means depriving the object of your“ love ”of freedom and keeping it under control. “Such love does not bestow life, but suppresses, destroys, stifles, kills it.”

2.1. Love and love addiction

Love addiction is “hunger”, “thirst” for “beloved”. This is an analogy of drug addiction, and that is why it is called "addicted love."

This feeling can be mutual and non-reciprocal, but in any case it is intoxicating, like a drug, like alcohol, and a lover (more precisely, an addict) looks like a drug addict or an alcoholic. He also cannot live without his “beloved”, like an alcoholic without a glass. He feels and thinks about the same thing that a hungry person feels and thinks about a piece of bread.

But, as a rule, this hunger (love addiction) drags on for years. And this is already a disease that brings nothing but pain and suffering, which must be “treated” and as quickly as possible! Sometimes mental pain is also felt at the physical level: it hurts, the heart hurts, pressure jumps, headaches and “female” and “male” diseases appear. Chronic stress also causes other diseases.

Often poetic lines reflect the inner (rarely, happy) state of the author, his love experiences, personal drama. The energy of unhappy love is sublimated into the energy of creativity, into a high creative potential. The poet, the writer had nowhere to put his overwhelming feelings, no one to express them, and they directed them into poetic lines filled with passion and suffering, which, however, relieved their soul. A vivid example of this is Petrarch with his Laura. By the way, prescribing suffering, negative thoughts, feelings is one of the psychotherapeutic techniques. Yes, and poetry is easier to write when the soul suffers, the words themselves "fall" on paper. When the soul rejoices, somehow it becomes not up to poetry, I want to “catch” the present moment, live it, enjoy life.

Sometimes creative people deliberately (someone consciously, some on a whim) become infected with such a state, look for such objects for love, tune in to drug-addicted love in order to create. For them, drug addiction is an artificially induced state, a source of creativity. After all, what is good and joyful is not interesting to read. The reader needs romance, suffering, trials and obstacles that heroes overcome, grief, blood, death.

Literature often programs the reader for love suffering, love addiction, for sacrificing oneself in the name of a wonderful feeling of love. Remember Romeo and Juliet, Anna Karenina, "poor" Lisa. Such literature, especially poetry, romanticizes negative experiences, tragedy, grief. And for those who read such poems and novels (and we usually read them at a young age), it seems that this is precisely the high feelings, this is love, that there is no love without suffering and pain.

And we begin to feel, think and act like literary heroes. Especially, such negative programs are dangerous for impressionable, romantic, emotional teenagers. They are already disappointed in the real, seemingly vulgar reality. They have no other ideals in life, except for these suffering, unfortunate heroes, and they consciously or unconsciously want to be like them. “I suffer like a heroine and I am proud of it! I know what true love is!” In addition, such literature helps to create not only one's own ideal, but also the ideal of a beloved (beloved), which simply cannot exist in real life. The discrepancy between reality and the ideal leads to great disappointments in life, suffering, constant dissatisfaction with what is. And such negative experiences destroy our life, our destiny.

As a rule, we are ready to blame evil fate, the object of love, and the entire opposite sex for the causes of our love suffering. And rarely does anyone realize that we ourselves are the source of these torments.

The fact is that love suffering occurs in a state of love addiction, it is also called addictive love. Dependence, even at the very beginning of a relationship, is a complex of negative feelings, expressed in continuous suffering for another person, in the desire to control his every step and “acquire it into his own”. The addict "gets stuck in suffering", he is not interested in anything in life except "beloved", he cannot think about anything else, cannot talk about anything else (any conversation comes down to "beloved": to what is with him how to behave, what to say, where he goes, what he does). For dependent people, love is suffering. And suffering becomes the “litmus test” of love: if I suffer for this person, then I love him, if I don’t suffer, then I don’t love him.

True Love is a bright, joyful, positive feeling. Love is an active interest in the life and free development of the object of love. I love you, but each of us is free (in our opinions, in our decisions). If you feel better without me, I will understand and let you go with wishes of happiness.

True Love is Joy! It is giving and receiving joy. The “litmus paper” of true love is joy, not suffering: if I rejoice in you and your joys, and you rejoice in me and my joys, if we are joyful and comfortable together, then we love each other.

By the way, true love is found in life no less than love addiction. It’s just that not everyone knows how to love, not everyone can recognize a real feeling (he just uses the wrong “litmus paper”: “if I suffer, I love, and if I don’t suffer, then this is not love”).

The main criterion of love is that we feel good together, and we feel good separately.

The main criterion of dependence: at the first stages - we are good together, but bad without each other, at the later stages - both bad together and bad apart.

Love brings positive emotions and makes everyone stronger, happier, more confident, calmer. A lover most of the time feels harmony within himself, stability, security, confidence, warm and tender feelings for his beloved. Negative emotions in connection with a loved one may appear, but for a short time. The one who loves blossoms, grows younger, becomes more beautiful, glows from the inside and wishes all the people around him the same happiness, the same love.

Love addiction, on the contrary, carries a lot of negative emotions: most of the time, the addict is overwhelmed with anxiety, anxiety, fears, insecurity, doubts, jealousy, envy, anger, irritation towards the “beloved”.

Positive emotions are bright, but short-lived. Even in the happiest moments there is some inner tension and doubt (“happiness is only a moment”).

Love does not cancel inner freedom. What about love addiction? it is a dependence on the mood of the "beloved", his look, tone of voice, words. Called - everything is cool, did not call - grief.

In love, relationships are built on equal terms: I give you love, you give me love; today there is a lot of me, tomorrow there is a lot of you, we are equal.

In love addiction, the addict is a subordinate, and his "beloved" dominates him. As a result, the addict strives with all his might to earn love, to please the “beloved”, while humiliating himself, he only gives, receiving nothing in return. He is the initiator of joint events, builds relationships himself, forgives everything, “swallows” insults.

Love is a constructive feeling and leads to success. Those who love improve things at work, financial situation, health, mood, they want to help others.

Addiction is destructive, most of the time the addict has a bad mood, stress, depression, health is destroyed. Since the addict cannot think of anything other than the “beloved”, he is completely obsessed with him, his work and financial situation worsen.

Love addiction is destructive, but true? creative. With true love, the presence of a loved one is not important, you do not suffer without him, even if he left or left forever. Of course, it’s sad, but you don’t plunge into long-term suffering, because you don’t feel the need for him, you wish him happiness: “It doesn’t matter to me where my beloved is, it’s important that he is.”

A sign of love addiction is “I can’t live without him”, “he alone can make me happy.” The addict clings to the "beloved" like a drowning man to a straw ("I'm dying without him").

However, no one and nothing in this world can make you happy or unhappy. If you are hoping that someone or something will make you happy, you are mistaken. There is no such object, no such circumstances. Happiness and unhappiness? it is only your reaction to this or that event, to this or that person. The facts themselves are irrelevant.

No matter how the relationship develops, the lover always wishes happiness to his beloved. The dependent, when the relationship is interrupted, on the contrary, there is a desire to take revenge on Him (Her) or other women (men), to recoup.

To get rid of love addiction, it is enough just to realize that this feeling is not love, but a disease. And then everything gets back upside down, you start to come to your senses. After all, a lot depends on what we think. Our thinking determines our feelings and actions. If we think that this is love, that there is no love without suffering, then we continue to suffer, to sacrifice ourselves to this painful feeling. If we think, we know that this is not love, but addiction, a disease, then we will feel, act in accordance with our thoughts.

Ancient Japanese and Chinese sages knew that love is a deep, uncontrollable passion. Therefore, already then the chemical origin of love, as feelings, was implied. When we love, we are haunted by obsessive thoughts about our beloved or loved one, a passionate desire to be with him, jealousy and many other feelings. But everything that goes on in our head is just chemistry. Alas!

And today, the theory that love is based on ordinary chemical and biological processes is becoming more and more popular in the world. The author of this theory is the American anthropologist Helen Fisher. She conducted original research using brain scanning techniques to determine which areas of the brain are responsible for love. According to her research, love goes through several stages.

Romantic love is just a chemical reaction that causes the brain to release a substance called dopamine. It is dopamine that gives a feeling of emotional uplift and well-being, it also increases the level of arousal of a person. The infatuation stage is the brain's attempt to connect with a potential partner. From a biological point of view, these "reactions of love" provide a practical implementation of the vital reproductive function.

Professor Fisher found that when people look at pictures of their loved ones, the pleasure center in the brain automatically becomes active. This is due primarily to the hormone dopamine. And when the brain realizes that pleasure is being delayed, it continues to activate the dopamine-based system, increasing the feeling of love.

But, on the other hand, the circuit of the brain during romantic love is not initially designed for eternal work. True passionate love is a temporary phenomenon that lasts an average of six months to three years. It's a biological trick of nature that wants to ensure that male and female stay together long enough to reproduce.

After romantic love comes the stage of attachment to a friend for a friend, the so-called reproductive stage. This is when real life finally prevails over passion. Then a connection is built that is strong enough and long enough for the joint upbringing of children. But even in this situation, lovers may not deprive their relationship of romanticism, as the constant novelty of sensations stimulates the production of dopamine in the brain.

Modern technologies allow us to understand how the brain works. But this does not exclude feelings, unearthly in love. We can know all the notes of Beethoven's sonatas and still enjoy listening to them. By analogy, we can know a lot about love, but still lose our heads and do crazy things for it.

Yes, love may be a chemical reaction of the body to many external factors, such as a smile, a touch, the smell of a person you like, but personally I will never say: “Darling, my brain has a strong chemical feeling for you!” Since there is nothing nicer and nicer than the good old "I love you!".

In fact, love is such a capacious concept that no one will ever be able to fully and completely express the whole gamut of feelings and emotions associated with the word “Love”.

Chapter 3

Both strong feelings involve understanding and caring. The time that friends spend together allows a man and a woman to become truly close people. The absence of sexual relations makes it possible to get to know a partner without experiencing the passion and prejudice that is inevitable with intimacy.

Two become loving people when they realize that the person with whom they are friends can attract them as a permanent couple for family life. Starting to appreciate each other as individuals, a man and a woman gradually begin to feel physical attraction.

Friendship can also become love when the former romantic relationship breaks up for both. At the same time, common experiences unite, give impetus to intimacy and even deeper feelings.

Friendship in a relationship is the key to a strong union. No relationship can be built solely on attraction. Yes, and love, unfortunately, sooner or later goes out. But the unity of souls or friendship, in other words, often lasts for years and even decades. Friendship in a relationship is needed so that partners feel support and support in each other, know that during troubles, there will be a person, close and beloved, who can lend a hand. Friendship in relationships helps keep love afloat, makes them taller and stronger.

Before starting a family, it is very important to determine for yourself whether there is friendship in a relationship, because you need to live with a person who not only attracts you sexually, but also outwardly. It is very important to see in a loved one an interesting interlocutor who has views on life similar to yours.

Conclusion

Love and friendship are one of the most important human values. Everyone wants to be loved and had many true friends. Love Everyone has experienced this wonderful feeling. Love is multifaceted. It can be their parents' love for children, and love for the Motherland, and love for God, and love between young people.

Love is often mistaken, seeing in a loved one something that is not there. But at the same time, it helps to reveal in the beloved everything beautiful and great, which is inaccessible to the mind. Only this true feeling changes people for the better. It makes you forgive, find your own in the happiness of another. Therefore, love is considered the most complex deep human feeling.

Everyone wants to have a real friend who will not deceive, will not leave when they are needed. When it's bitter, it's twice as easy to endure them with a friend. Everyone knows that in joy friends recognize us, and in sorrows we recognize them. You can trust a friend with everything, even yourself. He will be our second self. And it is very important for a person to be listened to. But so many demands on a true friend!

But usually these "customers" themselves are not ideal in order to demand the best comrade from fate. Not everyone can put themselves in the background and wholeheartedly help another. And only a true friend knows when you need him. And as the English philosopher David Hume said: “Friendship is a calm and quiet affection, directed and strengthened by habit, arising from long communication and mutual obligations.”

Therefore, love and friendship are one of the most important spiritual values for a person. A person without them would be lost, without a map of love and a compass of friendship. Love and friendship are closely related. These feelings simply cannot exist in isolation. There are no friends who do not love. Yes, and sympathy will arise if the foundation is a good friendship.

It must be remembered that both love and friendship are a gift, and some spend years looking for like-minded people. It is these feelings that allow us to feel needed for someone, whether he is a friend or the love of your life.

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Although love is a passion and a strong feeling, but it cannot last forever, and this is inevitable. The longer the relationship, the more frequent ups and downs (Berscheid et al., 1989). "High stress" can persist for months, even a couple of years, but as discussed in the discussion of adaptation (see Chapter 10), extreme situations are fleeting. The novelty, the strong mutual interest, the excitement of love, the dizzy feeling that you are "in seventh heaven" - all this is gradually declining. Newlyweds talk about mutual love 2 times more often than spouses who have lived together for 2 years (Huston & Chorost, 1994). Married couples who have lived together for 4 years divorce most often in all countries (Fisher, 1994). If close relationships are destined to last, they change qualitatively and become more even and calm, although they retain a romantic coloring. Hatfield called this relationship love-friendship.

“When two people are under the influence of the most violent, the most insane, the most deceitful and the most transient of all passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in this unnatural state of agitation and exhaustion until death do them part. George Bernard Shaw"

Unlike love-passion with its unbridled emotions, love-friendship is less "bravura", but a deeper and more tender connection. And quite perceptible. Nysa, a Kung-San woman living in the African Kalahari desert, has this to say about this: “When two people belong together for the first time, fire rages in their hearts, and their passion is boundless. Some time passes and the fire subsides. That's how it's done. They continue to love each other, but this is a completely different relationship - warm and reliable" (Shostak, 1981).

Those who know the rock song "Addicted to Love" will not be surprised to learn that love-passion in its effect on a person is similar to addiction to coffee, alcohol and other drugs. At first, the drug excites, sometimes even very strongly. With frequent use, opposite emotions increase and addiction develops. The amount that once caused intense arousal is no longer enough. However, even if you stop taking it, this does not mean at all that you will return to your original state, in which you were before you first tried the drug. It is more likely that you will show all the signs of "withdrawal" - malaise, depression, etc., etc. The same thing often happens in love. Passion cannot last forever. At first, relationships that have lost their ardor are taken for granted, and then they stop altogether. And now a “seduced and abandoned” lover, a widowed or divorced spouse is surprised to notice how empty their life has become without the one to whom they have long cooled. Focusing on what “stopped working,” they refused to notice what “kept working” (Carlson & Hatfield, 1992).

(Unlike love-passion, love-friendship can last a lifetime)

An illustration of the gradual cooling of passionate love and the growing importance of other factors, such as, for example, common moral values, are the feelings of Hindus who married for love and are in the so-called "arranged" marriage. Usha Gupta and Pushpa Singh asked 50 couples living in the state of Jaipur, India, to complete the Love Scale (Gupta & Singh, 1982). It turned out that the spouses who married for love, after 5 years of marriage, began to love each other less than they loved when they were newlyweds. In contrast, spouses who are in an "arranged" marriage, over time, begin to love each other more (Fig. 2).

Rice. 2. Arranged and love marriages: romantic love between spouses living in the state of Jaipur (India). (

Man is a social being. The need to enter into relationships with similar individuals is not only dictated by the instinct of survival and procreation, but also brings a bright color to a person's life. The higher the level of development of society, the more complex the psychology of interpersonal relations of the human community.

The most important emotionally for each person are relationships with people who are dear to him. The circle of such people can be quite wide, although the degree of emotional influence varies. Most often they include:

loved ones (sexual partner);
parents;
own children;
friends;
mentors (in education, in creativity).

Relationships are not always unambiguous, they are able to go in one direction or another, or they can even be interrupted. Sometimes a break in relations can be due to completely objective reasons, but often this break has a deep imprint on a person's personality. A few simple rules that govern the psychology of interpersonal relationships in our society will help build relationships correctly and avoid deep emotional shock in the event of a break.

Love and friendship

Making friends is an art. Someone understands it intuitively, and someone needs to learn consciously. Learn to trust friends and appreciate trust, be ready to understand and accept their shortcomings. You may really dislike something in your friend, something in your opinion is completely unacceptable, but you can’t emphasize it in a wide circle, although you can discuss it in private. If you start making fun of a friend in front of strangers, then you can say quite confidently that there is no sincerity in your friendship on both sides. You do not value your friend, and he does not expect friendship from you, but some other benefit associated with the relationship.

"Friendship implies equality and mutual respect, the ability to find a compromise and remain loyal to a friend in any conditions."

Breaking friendships

Mankind keeps many legends about strong friendship and betrayal. But sometimes friendships end without any reason and visible cooling. The reason for their association disappears, different interests appear, and as a result there is no visible possibility of maintaining close friendly relations. Do not be afraid of this, as this is the best ending to friendships. This is exactly the case referred to in the saying that an old friend is better than two new ones. You stopped meeting and calling back, but the warmth of relations and memories of the path traveled together remained. The psychology of relations with a married man is usually based on this, when joint plans for the future are not built.

If the gap occurred for any reason or was unreasonable, but one-sided, then this can leave a vivid emotional imprint on the mental life of a person. Over time, it will fade, but this will have to be experienced. The stronger emotionally you were attached to each other, the longer the period of weaning lasts.

The emotional life of a person is difficult to control the intellect, it goes on a sensual level. But so that emotions do not go into the category of emotional stress, you can try to minimize the consequences of a breakup.

Losing friendships, we gain new life experiences and open doors for new relationships. Therefore, try to immediately abandon the condemnation of your former friend, jealousy and anger, the desire for revenge. These negative emotions can undermine you from the inside up to the destruction of health.

"Connect your mind and try to fill this period with positive emotions. They can give you travel and new acquaintances, a sports club, a new hobby. Discover a new writer or a new game."

Do not blame yourself for the gap, as this is a normal situation, this happens on our Earth every day and every minute. Your situation is not something special and will not become a global tragedy.

Photo: Love and friendship

There are so many beautiful things in the world, so many positive emotions and feelings that sometimes you can just get confused in them. Love and friendship - what is the difference between them and does it exist at all, if we talk about friendship between a man and a woman? Or maybe friendship is that intimate feeling that a woman has for a woman, and love is a feeling that she feels for a man? Then friendship between a man and a woman simply does not exist? Is this really so, let's try to figure it out and put everything "on the shelves".

So, can we be friends? "What's question!" - many will be indignant, - “Of course we can! What kind of special skill is needed for this? We all have friends." And they will be wrong, because they include in the concept of friendship something completely different from what it is in reality. We often call friends or good acquaintances with whom we communicate for a long time. We call them back, take an interest in their affairs, meet sometimes, gather at the same table on holidays and sometimes share our experiences and joys.

But psychologists say that this cannot be called friendship. The psychology of friendship implies the need for regular communication with a specific person, a need tantamount to hunger. We need a friend, like air, in trouble, in joy, and just in everyday life. And this need is very reminiscent of another feeling - the feeling of love. Maybe these feelings are identical? But, alas, it is not. Does true friendship even exist? Is it possible to meet a person so close to you to feel that you really need him? Is it possible to keep this relationship and not lose friendship?

Sooner or later, such a person appears in life, the need for which always exists, and this is a psychological need. But, unfortunately, such relations are gradually fading away. Selfless friendship is slowly becoming a relic of the past. Friends now for us are people who can help in a particular issue or those with whom you can have a good time. The same goes for people who call us friends. In fact, if one of the allegedly close friends has a crisis, the “friends” evaporate somewhere until this crisis passes. This situation is familiar to almost everyone.

In a word, profitable friendship is rapidly crowding out disinterested friendship. And we begin to forget about the very concept of friendship. And in vain. What does true friendship mean? Love and friendship saves a person from loneliness at all times. Today we can finally lose one of the most reliable means of human communication - the ability to make friends. Losing the ability to be friends, you can probably unlearn and love, if these concepts are so close. About this skill and about what love is, and what friendship is from the point of view of psychology, we will talk today.

What does "friendship" mean?

What really lies in this seemingly familiar concept of friendship? Scientifically speaking, friendship is a disinterested, personal relationship between people based on common sympathies, interests and hobbies. True friendship is not just talking over a cup of coffee. Signs of true friendship are expressed in the fact that a friend is always there - is it bad for us, is it good ...

Does everyone have such friends? Unfortunately no. And can each of us be such a friend? Also "alas", and also "no". We climbed into tough cocoons and forgot how to sincerely rejoice at someone's successes and just as sincerely empathize with their failures. And this concerns, unfortunately, not only strangers, but also those who are close to us.

But it is precisely with those whom we love that we so need to be able to be friends! Because the lack of this skill gives rise to a lot of disagreements that contribute to the emergence of alienation between loving people and cause them heartache. Just the inability of the spouses to be friends, and not supposedly gone into oblivion love, is the cause of many divorces. No wonder they say that the best wife is both a friend and a loved one. Love is a friendship saturated with passion and desire. If there is no friendship between a man and a woman, then there can be no love, it is most likely only passion, love or sexual desire.

What does true friendship mean? Confidence in the future; it makes a person bolder, freer and more optimistic, and his life - warmer, more interesting and multifaceted. True friendship spiritually unites people, contributing to the development in them of the desire for creation, and not destruction. In a word, friendship is very important in our life, but, unfortunately, for the most part we do not take this into account. We do not realize that many problems that seem grandiose and frightening can be solved without much difficulty if there are reliable friends nearby. And if between spouses, in addition to love, there is also friendship, any conflicts that arise in marriage can be easily eliminated.

So what is more important - love or friendship? The question is completely incorrect, because speaking about the family, one cannot talk about one of these feelings, since they are strongly interconnected. Only if there is friendship, then there is true love. Is it possible to sincerely and truly love a person and not understand him, not support him, not be his friend? Of course not! Sometimes you can hear the phrase “I don’t understand him (her) at all!”, But this phrase remains only a set of words, because you can’t understand a person you don’t know, who is a stranger to you, but your loved ones are always understood.

How to learn to be friends for real? What is the psychology of these feelings? Should there be love or friendship, understanding and support between close people?

The ability to make friends and love in marriage

Many of us are used to thinking that love is necessary for a happy marriage. Meanwhile, this is not entirely true. Love in its purest form is a spontaneous, impulsive and uncontrollable feeling. Often it is love that is the reason for all kinds of strife between spouses and even the reason for the gap between them, if it is not backed up by true friendship. Why?

Because we do not know how to control outbursts of feelings if they are based only on love. And love often leads to a state of passion and deprives a person of the ability to reason. But when it is accompanied by friendship, control is not only possible - it happens arbitrarily, without the slightest internal tension. We are usually indulgent towards a friend, so many sharp corners in an exclusively loving relationship are smoothed out or completely bypassed. That is precisely why between loved ones, in addition to a feeling of passion and attraction to each other, there must be friendship, only then such feelings can be called true love.

The ability to be friends with a man and a woman, being loved, is not an easy task. However, if we want to be happy, we need to learn it. Otherwise, we will not avoid quarrels and strife, the motive for which will be, in essence, trifles. In order for spouses or lovers to become friends, they first of all need to cultivate in themselves the desire for voluntary self-sacrifice for the sake of their soul mate. The moral values of friendship, love, family in general presuppose the ability for self-sacrifice. However, for the most part, we strive to receive more than we give. This is the standard state of a normal person, which, at first glance, is quite difficult to change.

But this is only at first glance. Well, if the main part of us is selfish, then let's, for the sake of friendship in the family, let's act to please ourselves. And for this, let's remember the boomerang effect and the fact that everything that we give out, then comes back to us a hundredfold. Let's give our life partner warmth, participation, care and understanding, and in the end we will get the same from him. Well, if we don’t get it, then the marriage was a mistake. And warmth, participation and care will return to us through another person.

In general, the inability of a husband and wife to friendship slowly but surely undermines the foundations of any marriage, even if it was created on the basis of sincere and deep love. There is a difference in the psychology of love and friendship. Overly loving people lose the ability to soberly assess their role in the family. They are in a state similar to a disease, they are maximally concentrated on each other and cannot adequately perceive reality. It is impossible to live your whole life in such a state. Sooner or later it passes, and disappointment and annoyance comes to the empty place if nothing connects people. The result is alienation, loss of interest in the family, in relationships, the search for him on the side. Feelings of love and friendship are closely intertwined in the ideal relationship between a man and a woman.

In families with signs of true friendship between husband and wife, the occurrence of such a situation is almost impossible. There is no surplus in friendship. On the contrary, over time it becomes stronger and more reliable. A marriage union based on many years of friendship is like a well-oiled mechanism that works without failures. Divorce for such a family is almost unrealistic - even if, for some reason, the spouses go their separate ways, friendship will unite them again. That is why it is impossible to say what is more important - friendship or love. Love is the fire, and friendship is the fuel that sustains it and keeps it alive.

In order for families to have friendship, people who intend to create a marriage union should be prepared for the fact that sooner or later the spouses will show dissimilarity in beliefs, habits, and characters. On this basis, many disputes and quarrels arise, which often lead to the complete collapse of the marriage. But this is a disaster, no matter how you slice it. So what, to marry, knowingly dooming yourself to trouble? Hardly anyone wants it. We all strive for peace and security in the family, and only true friendship can give them to us. Friendly spouses instinctively yield to each other in everything, condescendingly treat the requirements of their soul mate, reflexively yielding to her. They live according to the true moral values of friendship, family love: mutual trust, self-sacrifice, kindness.

In such harmonious families, there is no question of who will be the first to step towards reconciliation after some kind of strife. These quarrels simply do not last long and are in the nature of a kind of game that is so necessary in family relationships. Therefore, reconciliation after them is not a problem - the one who at the moment turned out to be wiser begins to put up. Such a couple is self-sufficient, and each in it constantly experiences an urgent need for the other. This, of course, significantly weakens the craving of spouses to communicate with other people apart from each other. And what could be better than striving home, to your soul mate, from any, even a very attractive and interesting company of people?

Conclusion: for a good and strong marriage union, friendship between husband and wife is necessary. We, unfortunately, when creating a family, not only do not take this fact into account - we completely reject it, thus dooming ourselves to long torment due to eternal family conflicts. In society, there is a stereotype of a family in which the husband and wife are almost the first enemies. And each of them for many years is constantly trying to prove something to the other, and each is wrong, and each is unhappy. Divorce practically does not change anything, because, by creating another family, the ex-husband and wife will automatically build relationships in accordance with the model of the former family.

Today's families are often based on the principle of who will crush whom. “He (she) will walk on my string!” - exclaim potential husband and wife in response to the question of how they are going to build family relationships. But after all, we do not choose scoundrels for our spouses, but girls with disgusting characters as wives! Where does the intention to become a cruel taskmaster, and not a true friend, whom you can trust always and in everything? After all, the old saying “Husband and wife are one Satan” did not arise from scratch. It is based on centuries of experience and implies nothing more than a strong and reliable friendship.

So there can be no love without friendship in a relationship for a long time, falling in love - yes, but not love. Because love without friendship is like a person without hands. So let's learn to be friends with our soul mates and begin to create marriages that will become stronger over the years, and sincere feelings will become the basic principles of family happiness.

Talk 2

What do friendship and love have in common?

1. Attraction. Attraction to another may not necessarily be sexual or romantic. Best friends tend to attract each other. And people who have been friends for many years, apart, can experience the same feelings as lovers.

2. Proximity. When we open up to someone, share our dreams, thoughts, goals and plans, then this person naturally becomes much closer to others. Well, if we get the same frankness in return, then there is a strong bond based on trust and understanding. And this is possible between friends and between lovers.

3. Respect. Healthy romantic relationships are built on mutual respect, and the same can be said for friendships. But it cannot be argued that if you admire a loved one, then you feel for him something other than friendly feelings. Friends who you can admire and rejoice in their successes will only make you better, inspiring you to new achievements, and their reciprocal respect will not let you give up even in the most difficult situations.

4. Support. Providing mutual support is the main task in both friendships and romantic relationships. It helps us flourish, develop, change and endure everything that happens to us.

5. Pleasure. Enjoying each other's company and having fun together, laughing at the same jokes and waiting for a new meeting - this still does not mean that you are having an affair. But this is definitely a sure sign that you are very, very good friends.

How is love different from friendship?

The first and main difference is sex. But even here the boundaries are somewhat blurred today - we must not forget about the existence of "sex for friendship." However, there are other aspects of relationships that distinguish lovers from close friends.

1. General goals. Only romantic couples are engaged in planning a joint future. And although friends may completely coincide in their views on religion, politics and lifestyle, their life goals do not tend to a common denominator.

2. Time and attention. In romantic relationships, partners devote all their free time and attention to each other, which can never be found even in the strongest friendship. The two choose to focus on each other, and the attention they receive from the other makes them feel comfortable. Conversely, if one of the two no longer wants to spend energy on a partner, this may mean the near end of the relationship.

3. Interdependence. Social psychologist Caryl Rasbalt argues that the determining factor in a romantic relationship can be considered the degree of interdependence of partners. Yes, friends depend on each other, but the lives of lovers are tightly intertwined. While in a relationship, the two rely more and more on each other and eventually replace "I" and "you" with "we".

Commitments are often forgotten, and it depends on whether the relationship remains friendly or turns into a romantic one.

4. Positive illusions. In a healthy relationship, partners are fascinated by each other. They have high expectations and ideas about a loved one, which often do not coincide with reality. But psychologists Sandra Murray, John Holmes and Dale Griffin believe that this is absolutely normal. It is these rosy dreams that distinguish love from more realistic friendship.

5. Influence. Of course, friends influence decision-making, goals and plans, preferences and prospects, but a loved one here has more power. We tend to make our partners part of our sense of self, to perceive ourselves through the prism of our loved one. With friends, this is not possible.

6. Obligations. They are often forgotten, and according to Caryl Rasbalt, it depends on this whether the relationship remains friendly or turns into a romantic one. The very decision to start a romantic relationship portends stability and reflects a conscious choice in favor of working towards creating a couple.

“Deciding on the future of a relationship is a serious step that requires weighing all the pros and cons, opportunities, benefits and investments that have already been made,” says Caryl Rasbalt. And while most friends can make good partners, it's the decision and willingness to dedicate one's life to one that determines the success of a romantic union.