In this session, recorded on October 27th, 2012 in Hythe, Kent, UK, we look at the psychology of love, or the experience of it in the human soul - how it is sensual, sentimental, and the task of integrating these into the whole person.
Sensuality is experiencing a reaction to objective stimuli, and emotion is a reaction to a value perceived. This is very profound and has a deep richness when we speak of man's experience of woman and vice versa. Sentimentality is the susceptibility that a person has toward the person of the opposite sex. It is a person's attraction toward the other person, and therefore allows for affection. Affection is open to more spiritual values such as goodness, truth, and beauty. Sensuality can tend toward objectification or use of the other person for one's enjoyment or it can tend toward a more rich experience of love, if is integrated in the love of their personhood. Sentimentality has the possibility for idealization of the other and therefore an unrealistic approach to them, resulting in disillusionment or even hatred for whom one had previous affection.
These things need to be integrated or brought into the spectrum of the whole person. This is done with objective truth and love. Truth and truth alone can free a person so that sensuality and sentimentality are not the reigning factors in a relationship.
