In today's psychiatry, it is possible to treat many diseases that involve emotions such as anxiety and sadness and the behavioral and physiological changes associated with these emotions. What about love?
How can one respond to the cries for help of a person suffering from unrequited or platonic love? Since love is a phenomenon consisting of emotions, behavior and physiological changes, can't it be treated? Scientists seeking an answer to this question have first begun to examine how love arises, as is the case with every disease for which treatment is sought. Although love is a very basic and universal phenomenon, it is not easy to understand how and why it happens. First of all, the phenomenon whose cause will be investigated must be objectively identifiable. However, no matter how universal love is, what is felt is far beyond words and varies from person to person. Scientists trying to be objective in the definition of love have tried to explain love with 3 different but inseparable components: emotional, behavioral and physiological. The behavioral component includes excessive focus and attention on a loved one, obsessive thinking about the loved one, dependence on his/her presence, and the deprivation felt in his/her absence.
The term "addictive substance" in the substance addiction criteria in psychiatry refers to "the loved one." When "person" and "usage" are changed to "meeting", the definition of Love becomes as follows;
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The need to spend more and more time with the loved one and often seeing them for longer than intended
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The emergence of withdrawal symptoms specific to love (longing, anxiety, unhappiness, sleep) when not seeing the loved one. disorder, etc.)
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A lot of effort and time is spent to first impress the loved one, then to meet them, and then to get rid of their effects (such as thinking about the moments spent)
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In the case of a platonic or unrequited love, there is a constant desire or unsuccessful efforts to get rid of loving the loved one or to control one's emotions.
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The loved one � Failure to take necessary responsibilities in social and professional activities due to spending or planning to spend time with people We see that all observed behavioral symptoms overlap.
Should we interpret the motto "A nail takes out another nail" for the pain of love as a search for a substance with a simple withdrawal symptom? Is love really addictive? These questions are new research areas of modern psychiatry.
The emotional component of love includes feelings such as ecstatic happiness, separation anxiety, longing, and jealousy. In the physiological component, there are changes such as increased energy in love, decreased need for sleep, loss of appetite, erotic desires directed towards the loved one, tremors in the mental or objective presence of the loved one, heart palpitations, feeling of warmth.
When viewed with imaging methods, the lover experiences changes such as The fact that the areas activated in people with diabetes and the areas where the brain's reward mechanisms are located are almost similar suggests that dopamine, a neurotransmitter (messengers responsible for neural transmission in the brain) associated with reward, addiction and extreme joy, plays a role in the chemistry of love. While happiness, enjoyment of life, increased sexual desire and increased concentration are observed with the increase in dopamine (selective attention is directed towards the loved one in love), serotonin levels decrease with the release of dopamine. With low serotonin levels, decreased appetite, sleep disorders, obsessive thoughts (obsessive, repetitive and irresistible thoughts about the loved one in love) are observed. Dopamine also reduces the effect of a hormone called prolactin, which reduces sexual desire, thus ensuring increased sexual desire during the existence of love. Dopamine accelerates heartbeat and increases blood pressure in peripheral organs outside the brain, with its indirect effects on norepinephrine. In the courtship and mating rituals seen in birds and other mammals other than humans, dopamine and norepinephrine are elevated, similar to those in people in love. decreased serotonin levels It may suggest that love is simply an evolved courtship ritual. However, romantic love in humans tends to continue with a relationship in which fidelity is promised, unlike the courtship ritual of other mammals, which is aimed at mating and reproduction. Scientists have suggested that romantic love has separate functions related to attachment and sexual desire related to reproduction, and that love is initially just a general state of arousal towards finding a partner for reproduction. So when does love become romantic love?
Romantic attachment and parent-child attachment are two distinct prototypes of emotional closeness that belong to the same set of social behavior. Oxytocin, the hormone that initiates birth and breastfeeding, is particularly associated with bonding behavior, early socialization and sense of trust between mother and child. It is thought that neural circuits similar to romantic love play a role in mother-child love, which is a long-term and unrequited attachment. Oxytocin and vasopressin concentrations are thought to increase during romantic bonding and mating. A study suggested that oxytocin levels in couples in love can predict the likelihood of a romantic relationship 6 months later. Vasopressin is a hormone secreted from the adrenal gland. It has been determined that, unlike many mammals, when the release of vasopressin is blocked in monogamous field mice, it causes the mouse to lose its attachment to its partner and not protect its partner from other competitors. Vasopressin is held responsible for social behavior and aggressive behavior towards other men, especially in men. The release of oxytocin also increases with orgasm in both sexes. According to one theory, it has been suggested that attachment is deeper in couples who have more sex.
While increasing testosterone levels in men are associated with infidelity in the relationship, no relationship was found between fidelity and testosterone levels in monogamous women. Like chicken and egg, time and science will tell whether men will be cleared of cheating with high testosterone levels, or whether women will catch unfaithful men with a blood test, assuming that testosterone increases in men who continue to search for a partner outside. /p>
In recent years, it has been thought that pheromones play a role in triggering the release of testosterone. Studies have also shown that one should not look outside for fidelity in love, and it has been determined that people who feel romantic love are less sensitive to the body odor of strangers. However, the surprising result is that people in love do not increase their sensitivity to the loved one's scent, which is incompatible with selective and increased attention to the loved person, which is one of the most basic findings of love. In this case, love and romantic love are two different phenomena, while in love there is a selective and increased attention towards the loved one, in romantic love that promises fidelity, it can be thought that the attention is closed to possible threats, or in other words, romantic love is blind.
Romantic love supporters were disappointed in the follow-up study of the famous study, which added the phrase "love has a lifespan of 3 years" to our vocabulary, and concluded that romantic love lasts 2 to 3 years and that the subjects did not feel in love at the end of this period. It has been reported that the cortisol levels of subjects who felt romantic love at the beginning of the relationship were higher than the controls and that these levels decreased to normal levels even if the relationship continued for 1 to 2 years. Other studies supporting this also found that the nerve growth factor, which was found to be high at the beginning of romantic love, followed a similar course to cortisol. has done. While the nerve growth factor is found to be high in romantic love in direct proportion to the intensity of the feelings, at the end of 2 years it eventually returns to normal, no matter how high the initial value is.
In short, love ends, whether it is romantic or pure love, and what remains is the relationship. Since it has been determined that cortisol levels are longer-lasting and higher in people in love who are considering a long-term relationship than in those who are not considering a relationship, in this case, what will bring romantic love to the relationship may be to increase cortisol as much as possible. Cortisol is a hormone secreted in our body as a reaction to stress, and its long-term release suppresses the body's immune system. Based on this, does love only survive when it is anxious, and when it ensures the relationship, it strengthens the immune system? Does it weaken the “I” to allow the entry of love and allow the “I” to become “we”?
Although vague neurobiological findings cannot help us fully solve the mystery of transcendental existence, they have shed light on possible mechanisms. Even though people in the modern world want to find out how love works and reach their goal without pain or effort by using both love potions and love treatments when they don't want to; Perhaps it is the risks taken and the pain suffered that make love love... As Aristotle said, "To love is to suffer, not to love is to die. Loving is pleasure, but being loved alone has no pleasure."
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