A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It Limerence:

t the time of the trial, Nancy Mackintosh was a 33-year-old science journalist who had already won the respect of peers and public through several of her articles on topical scientific subjects that had been published in the New York Times. Nancy did not, at first, see that consulting Dr. Young for help with a personal problem held any implications for her professional work. That came later. At first, she saw herself as an ordinary client looking for psychological consultation to help her understand events in her life. As there were six years between them, Nancy and her older brother, Jim, were not close as children, but neither were they unfriendly. It was just that after childhood, their lives took different paths. Jim did fairly well as a minor capitalist (he owned a computer store). Aside from lifestyle and some philosophical differences, she respected her brothers intelligence, his fundamental honesty, his basic goodness, and his love of anchovies on pizza. She was interested in Jims opinion on the matter of suing Dr. Young. She had doubts about whether she should go through with taking legal action, but Jim absolutely insisted that she continue with the suit. His argument was that she had a moral obligation to protect other victims. According to a documentary he had seen on television, sex offenses by psychotherapists were not rare, and were very destructive. Nancy tried to explain that it wasnt exactly a sex offense. Dr. Young had not, after all, even touched her. Except emotionally, Jim said. But others, she reminded him, had done far worse. You do remember Leonard. But Jim was adamant. Yes, I remember Leonard well, but Leonard and the others werent men you had applied to for help. Letting Dr. Young get away with what are clearly detrimental behaviors just guarantees that someone else will suffer from his incompetence. Although she really didnt like to hurt Dr. Young, who had come to seem pathetically vulnerable, Nancy could not argue with Jims logic that the principle was worth what it might cost him. Nancy had consulted Dr. Young after a series of relationships that had not led to marriage, as she had hoped they might. She had found Peter Youngs name in a newspaper article about something he had published. It described him as an outstanding citizen in the community who was on the board of several civic organizations. He seemed okay. She wanted to avoid quackery. She did not then realize what she later came to believe, that when it comes to psychotherapy, quackery is not easily avoided. Tim, Mike, Mitch, Leonard, and Brett had all told her that there was something wrong with her because she didnt respond in some way they wanted her to. They accused her of emotional inadequacy. Nancy had thought it was their problem, not hers, but when it happened for the fifth time she decided to check it out. She wanted to know what was going on and what she could do to create a long-term, loving relationship that did not deteriorate, as her past attempts at long-term relationships always had. She was exasperated by the way those men made her feel guilty for something she did not understand. Yes, she tried to explain to each of them, she liked him and liked to be with him, but there were times when she needed to be alone to get her work done, or when she just needed to be alone. They couldnt seem to understand that she was not being disloyal, that there was no one else, but that she simply needed her own time. She also felt that her former lovers looked at her more than they listened to herthat they cared more about her feelings for them than they really cared for her, or even for her welfare. When she began to feel that the same thing was happening in psychotherapy with Dr. Young, she felt that her last hope had let her down. During the first interview, for which she was not charged, Dr. Young had seemed kindly, intelligent, and very much the gentleman. And he seemed to take a genuine interest in her problem. He commended her for looking for help and was certain that hers was the type of problem for which he believed his methods were particularly suitable. She distinctly recalled that word.

Chapter III Nancy Mackintosh

The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov

When she said that she found the term therapy somewhat intimidating, Peter did not understand what she meant, and instead explained that he uses short term methods which means no more than a couple of months. The fee was $105 per session paid in to his receptionist before each visit. It sounded harsh, but Dr. Young explained it in an almost apologetic tone, as if it were part of the therapy itself, because of its psychological effects. He said that a session already paid for is a session more mentally free, or some such. Anyway, it seemed reasonable the way he put it, so Nancy bought it. She also noted that it enabled him to avoid having to hire two receptionists because, since, after the session, she would be let out into a different part of the building from the one by which she had entered. As the corridor led directly to an exit into the street, it felt a little bit like being thrown away, or escaping. In any case, there was no receptionist at that end to whom she might have paid her bill. When she looked into it, Nancy found that many therapists use a similar arrangement. It keeps patients from meeting, thereby protecting their privacy. She could see the value in it, but it still gave her the creeps. It seemed like a sign of something secret, maybe even something malevolent. But, she thought, maybe she was being oversensitive. The fee would come close to wiping her out if it there were very many sessions, but she thought of some stocks she could cash. She really wanted to be married some day, and she did not want another failed relationship. During that first interview, Nancy again brought up the issue of the word therapy. She said she thought she had a relatively simple problem, that is, she meant that she did not have a mental disorder. She certainly didnt consider herself to be a psychiatric patient in need of therapy, just because she consulted a psychologist. She wondered whether she would be obliged to be truthful on forms that ask whether she have ever suffered from or been treated for a mental disorder. It worried her, but Dr. Young had assured her, erroneously, as she later learned, that her records were entirely confidential, especially if no third party payer were involved. There wouldnt be a third party involved. She doubted if her insurance policy covered such services. Even if it did, it was not, she thought, to be a major expense, so shed just as soon leave them out of it. True, she was technically a patient, but if that implied she was mentally ill, well, that was an unacceptable designation. She approached Dr. Young as if he were the wise man who could answer her questions. She needed help in understanding the actions of others, actions that she had considered signs of dysfunction on their part. She wanted to know what an expert would think about it, so she consulted one. In subsequent sessions, Nancy described her various relationships with men, and how each relationship had failed in the same way. Although, she said, I took great pains to be what they wanted me to be, they still complained, until I couldnt take it any more and broke it off. She emphasized that, in every case, these were men she really liked and liked to be with, and missed no longer having as lovers and friends. It wasnt jealousy on their part; it was more than that. They seemed to be deeply hurt by something she did to which she was entirely blind. As she later informed Ed Pervis, her lawyer, her purpose in entering therapy was to find out if there was anything that she could do that she had not known to do. Also, she wanted to know if it was true as they said, that she was incapable of real love. The pattern had started when she was about 15 years old, with Timmy. Each relationship lasted from six months to two years, and each parting was sad for her, although her sadness did not match the descriptions she would later read about lovesickness. The men all said things like, You dont know how to love, or they said that she was cold and that she was didnt know true love. She did not, at that time, understand what was going on, but eventually she felt forced to conclude that she was the common element, that it was something about her or about what she did that caused their reactions. As the sessions dragged on, Dr. Young had given her every sign of understanding her plight, although he offered no specific suggestions about how to prevent a recurrence of the problem. They talked a lot about how she was feeling about it, past, present, and future. From time to time, he gave an interpretation, a kind of theory that attempted to make sense of things that had happened. For example, based on the fact that four of the five men played tennis, which she happened to be good at, Dr. Young suggested that the problem might be her deep-seated need to compete with men. Maybe so, but there was

A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It Limerence:

also the fact that she spent a lot of time hanging around tennis courts, so it is hardly any wonder that she would connect with tennis players. Furthermore, what about Mitch? They didnt even play cards together. With all of them, it was a common outlook on political, social, and artistic events that drew them to each other, and Nancy saw no competitiveness in attending a concert together. In other words, Dr. Young seemed quite off base, and it was out of a kind of politeness that she humored him and didnt put up much of an argument. Besides, he might have a point, only it had begun to seem less and less likely. At the outset, Nancy had naively imagined that Dr. Young would look up her problem up in the book of psychological problems and solutions, and tell her how to handle things better. Three months later, she wondered why she hadnt gone instead to an astrologer. Or a bartender. Or she might have written a detailed letter to newspaper columnists and received a sound analysis of her situation. She went to a psychologist because it had repeatedly not worked out with men. Was that because they suffered from some emotional abnormality that caused them to have made what she saw as unreasonable emotional demands on her, or was she somehow at fault? During the first dozen or so sessions, they discussed each of the failed relationships. She went to the senior prom with Tim; but after a while he wanted to monopolize her, and he had to know where she was at all times. If she so much as spoke to another boy, he would carry on about it. After graduation, she broke it off. She was going away to college, which made it easier. There were no other even slightly serious relationships for a few years. When she was in her early twenties, it was Mike, and then Mitch. Both of them were great guys, great tennis players, but both started acting the way Tim had. She liked them both, but she had her own interests and, anyway, she was not quite ready to form a partnership that would cover all aspects of her life. Her work wasnt completely sharable. With Len, she was twenty-four and more ready for establishing a permanent relationship, but it was the same thing all over. It was only just before the trial, that she learned about Love Two and saw that she had inadvertently played a role in Lens tragedy. She felt grief, but, at the time, assumed that his desire to kill himself had nothing to do with her. When Nancy realized what was going on with each of her men, she would always cut off connections with the man, but it was only after learning about Love Two that she realized that she had played with their feelings in a way that caused them pain. All she knew at the time was that everything she did to help only worsened the problem. She couldnt be friendly, or even polite, without it being misinterpreted as having deeper meaning. They made her feel uncomfortable by demanding something that she could not give. They called it love. She called it crazy. The word neurotic may have been out of fashion, but it was how they appeared to her. When she described her problem to Dr. Young, Nancy had They made her feel emphasized that, as far as she could see, she, herself, was neither desperate nor irrational. She was successful in her work, which she uncomfortable by enjoyed enormously. She was calm and sane, but she was curious as well demanding something as concerned to know what was going on. If there was something she could do in order to have a good and lasting relationship with a man, so that she could not give. that she could fulfill her desire to get married and have a family, she They called it love. wanted to know what it was before she got any older. Surely, she She called it crazy. thought, the appropriate place to go for such help would be to a psychologist. You are the ones, she told Dr. Young, who would know about such things. Or so she assumed. She was very clear, at least she tried to be very clear, about why she was there. It was not for psychoanalysis but for consultation regarding that one particular problem. She wanted to know what the men were feeling and what it might have been that she did that caused them to feel that way. To her surprise, despite her misgivings, the early sessions had been a pleasure. She liked talking about herself to an avid listener. At first, he did not ask about dreams or childhood, but let her explain in great detail what had transpired through each of the five failed relationships. During that happy period, Nancy saw herself in partnership with Dr. Young, a pair of detectives examining the evidence and trying to solve the mystery of why those men had responded to her as they had. It wasnt until about the third month

The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov

that she began to suspect that he didnt really know what to do with her, and that maybe his therapy would not be able to help her after all. It seemed to her that his sudden shift to inquiring about her childhood and her dreams was only taking them further from the issue that was her purpose in consulting him. At the beginning, she had expected magic, that Dr. Young would really be able to give her an answer to her question. Later, after some research on the subject of psychodynamic psychotherapy, she realized that Dr. Youngs privately-held reaction had probably been that, when she queried him at that first session, she was protesting mental health too much, and that the patients who declare that they have no problems probably have the worst, deeply repressed, problems of all. But, despite her suspicions, she continued to be cooperative and to keep her growing doubts to herself. She answered Dr. Youngs questions on family background, on childhood, and even on dreams, although she had read that the new psychotherapies had gotten away from the old Freudian dream interpretations. Dr. Young called it breaking the ice. What ice, she wondered. After about ten sessions, her qualms grew strong. Not only did they not seem to be getting any closer to solving her problem, but there were his subtle movements. It was also because of what her expanded research was picking up. She tried hard not to believe that this would be just another man smothering her with his irrational attentions. She stuck it out partly because she refused to believe her growing suspicions. She accepted his explanation that she was projecting on to the therapist her reactions to others. At least, she tried to accept it. Later, she tried to pretend to accept it. There did come a point when Nancy absolutely ceased to be a patient, and became a journalist getting material for an article rather than someone who had a realistic hope of receiving help. It was a role alteration of which he was unaware. But then, his role had also changed. As her doubts grew, she did further research. She was a journalist, after all. She asked herself such basic questions as, What is psychotherapy all about, anyway? Aside from a course or two in college, she had paid little attention to psychology. It didnt seem to be getting anywhere that was relevant to her concerns. The results of the research only deepened her suspicions that psychotherapy was essentially illusory, a deception perpetrated as much on Peter Young as on his patients. She had explained her problem at the very first interview, and Dr. Young had clearly stated that he would be able to help her. His later behavior showed that he had not understood her case, that he had ignored or misinterpreted her protests, and that he had no idea whether he could help her find an answer to her question, except that he operated on the assumption that therapy sessions had to be beneficial. Nancy remembered his statement later when she read an article by the Love Two author, Alan Browne, who had taken some pains in his research to keep separate the process of counseling and the process of research. He would not, for example, allow clients to pay him for a session that was primarily a research session. Browne had had a discussion with a psychiatrist who was conducting research on chemical changes associated with what was called hysteroid dysphoria in the psychiatric lexicon. It was a clinical term he used to denote a disorder of extreme romantic attachment or lovesickness. In other words, it was probably what Browne called Love Two. Under some conditions, Love Two became lovesickness. The psychiatrists procedure seemed so different from Brownes own policy of strict separation of research from treatment that Browne asked how the psychiatrist separated clinical from research function, especially since he was operating in a hospital setting and therefore saw both in-patients and out-patients in his office on the hospital grounds. The psychiatrist said that Browne should not have been shocked to find that the patients were the ones paying for the research sessions because it was a common practice, dating back to Freud, himself. When Browne wondered whether it didnt mean exploiting the patients, the psychiatrist uttered a bit of what Browne had considered medical arrogance: A patient could not have a session with me without benefiting. Especially impressive was Anna Sands book, Falling for Therapy, because Sands criticisms were derived from her own experiences as a patient. Continuing to search the psychological literature, Nancy found that, every once in a while, some researcher would loudly proclaim, It Works! This had only

A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It Limerence:

increased her suspicions. To Nancy, considering the criticisms she was finding, it seemed like too much protesting. What, exactly, did works really mean? Had there been doubts? And what was the relationship between psychotherapy and science? Was psychotherapy scientifically grounded? She found several books and many articles that were critical of psychotherapy and of psychology generally, even including testing and research. Jeffrey Masson was particularly antagonistic toward psychoanalysis, but, in Against Therapy, he broadened the targets to include non-Freudian therapies as well. But it was Ernest Gellners 1985 The Psychoanalytic Movement that sensitized her to anything Dr. Young did that smacked of the dead, psychoanalytic concentration on the unconscious. Indeed, the deeper she got into reading about outcome studies, the more doubtful she became. For example, she found that back in 1976, when psychotherapy had been under attack by the British psychologist Hans Eysenck and others, Gene Glass, an American psychologist, conducted what he called meta analysis, in which an investigator combined studies done at different times by different researchers and under different conditions into a single analysis. These were hailed as proving that psychotherapy was indeed effective. But an article by free-lance science writer Charles Mann, which appeared in Science magazine, quoted a number of statisticians and scientists from medicine and other fields that threw grave doubts about the value of the method in the field of psychology. However useful it may be in picking up effects that might otherwise be missed in medicine, some critics found it to be an inappropriate measure of the effectiveness of psychotherapy, where the basic data involved subjective judgments. Furthermore, according to an article in the British Medical Journal, in 2001, even intensive treatment fails to affect an inclination toward violence. Indeed, the more Nancy delved into the literature, it became clearer and clearer, that psychotherapy had no particular method, no consistent training, and that so equivocal were the results of studies designed to measure effectiveness, that any study (out of probably hundreds of never-published failures) that brought welcome results was extravagantly flaunted in the psychology press. One respected writer, David Smith, claimed that the much vaulted research was junk, and the diagnostic categories associated with it little more than folk psychological fictions. This point had also been made a decade earlier by Chris R. Brewin of the London Institute of Psychiatry, who stated that none of the much touted cognitive behavior therapy approaches, considered by many to be a more effective alternative to psychodynamic therapies, was firmly grounded in scientific research. Nancy was especially doubtful about the Consumers Union Report of 1995. She had always trusted that magazine, but the whitewash given to psychotherapy in that article was inconsistent with the picture she was getting from her reading. This time, it seemed, Consumers Report was not acting in the consumers interest. Maybe it works, but what is it, and what, really, does works mean? That was the hitch. All kinds of methods of treatment had about the same degree of success, some even claimed the same success of no treatment at all.

efore beginning with Dr. Young, Nancy had consulted some books and articles on how to find a psychotherapist. There was agreement that psychotherapists could be psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, or counselors, and that even within each of those categories they came in multiple stripeswith different methods, different philosophies, and different interpretations about what was going on. The recommendations for choosing among them involved making very subjective and personal judgments. One writer, for example, advised that during the initial interview prospective patients should pay attention to their comfort levels and decide whether they felt comfortable with the prospective therapist. Did, for example, the therapist appear to listen? Nancy found it disconcerting that such judgments were considered more important than the therapists academic background and professional reputation. One book suggested asking around, especially of other patients. That suggestion was unrealistic in the extreme, as the stigma associated with being a psychotherapy patient made it something a person does not advertise. Bringing a formal suit may have seemed like a cruel thing to do, and maybe she would not have done it if she had had it to do over again, but her doubts about psychotherapy had risen to high pitch. It was also about that time that a ten-year-old child was killed by rebirthing therapists so intent on changing the

The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov

childs character that they smothered her under blankets. The idea was that the confinement represented a new womb, from which she would emerge a new and less troublesome child. That was certainly the most bizarre and evil of psychotherapy misbehaviors. While it was true that the perpetrators were not full-fledged members of the psychotherapy establishment in the press account they were described as unlicensed it was in the name of psychotherapy that Candace Elizabeth Newmaker was sat on by four adults, until she could no longer breathe. Candace had suffered from RAD, defined by the American Psychiatric Association as markedly disturbed and developmentally inappropriate social relatedness. It was a relatively new category applied to extremely difficult children. In her account of the incident, journalist Audrey Gillan noted that RAD had become so popular a designation that it had led to the emergence of an entire industry of profit-motivated therapists with unproven treatments. Other writers had accused RAD of being psychology that created its clientele or, in writer Tana Dineens phrase, psychology that had manufactured [its] victims. Furthermore, for some years preceding the birthing scandal, there had been intermittent awkward episodes for psychology in connection with accusations of child sexual abuse by psychotherapy patients who recovered forgotten memories. In one of the most protracted criminal trials in history, small children interviewed by therapist Martha Cockriel were induced to falsely accuse their adult caretakers of various abuses. That had led to a great deal of personal harm to all concerned, including the children. After an 11month trial, nurse Kelly Michaels served five years of a 47-year sentence before an appellate court ruled that she had not received a fair trial. In other cases parents and other child caretakers were accused, and sometimes convicted, of sexually abusing children based on testimony influenced by therapists or other adults that encouraged them to remember events that were eventually believed not to have taken place. Violet and Chery Amirault of the Fells Acres Day School spent eight years in prison before their lawyers were able to obtain a new trial. The interpretation Nancy drew from these miscarriages of justice was that, in a one-to-one situation, a person of authority could wield psychological power. Nancy realized that Peter Young had not committed a crime the way the birthing people had. But the recovered memory scandals had put a cloud over therapy in that, had legitimate practitioners of the science been successful in treating their patients conditions, there would not have been a market for extreme methods. Furthermore, it was not all that divergent from acceptable tradition; according to reports, forty rebirthing centers had been established among various states after the disorder that it was designed to treat was listed under other disorders of infancy, childhood or adolescence in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). Until sex abuse scandals rocked everything, conventional treatment was broad enough to include holding therapy, in which the patient is hugged, held, and cuddled by the therapist and care giver(s). Rebirthing was a more extreme form of a technique, invented by Leonard Orr, a psychotherapist, whose method mainly involved a 15-minute breathing exercise. To Nancy, the message, further supported by testimony at the trial, was that psychotherapy was a vague, uncertain, and unsafe business. Nancy found it interesting that although the psychiatrist was often the villain in films, psychological healers, advice-givers, and psychologists made frequent appearances on talk shows. Television personality Oprah Winfrey turned her show into a forum for psychotherapists who varied both in their methods and in the ideologies under which they functioned. It was no wonder that Nancy could not find answers to her questions about the distinguishing differences among professionals or between the professional and the quack. The TV talk show hosts parade of advice-givers and self-help experts also carried the message that psychotherapy was not a single, science-based discipline. Nancy could see no point in confronting Dr. Young with the negative information about psychotherapy that her research was turning up; instead, she became an undercover journalist who would put the information her research had uncovered into an important article. Although, until quite late in the game, she had not entirely given up hope that he would provide some help with her very real problem, and since, by then, Dr. Young knew a great deal about her, it was not really until the incident occurred that she decided to sue. It was then that she lost all hope that D. Young might yet provide suggestions that would be

A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It Limerence:

personally helpful. Until then, she had hoped that even if it wasnt completely scientific, and even if psychotherapy worked only for some people with some therapists, maybe she would be one of the lucky few. Her doubts increased, but she found it hard to believe that a man so respected in the community and by his profession would have no means of helping her. At the outset, he had assured her that he could help her either to solve the problem or to feel better about the problem. Thinking it over, Nancy realized that that was not much of a promise. Nancy couldnt answer the question of the value of psychotherapy, but the literature she had uncovered had forced her to question its probable downsides. Her interest in the subject had moved from concern about her personal problem to that which was the business of all journalists, their very raison dtre to bring to public awareness what would otherwise not be known about matters of importance. Because of the high cost of the psychotherapy sessions, especially relative to her income, plus her increasing doubts about the whole psychotherapy industry, based on her library and Internet research, Nancy contacted Walt Harris, her editor, to see if he might be interested in helping her stick with it long enough to gather enough material for a feature article, with the magazine paying expenses. She could have just quit, but she was interested in seeing where it would lead, and she could use the results of her research in the article, even though she had no intention of identifying Peter Young by name. She drafted a beginning.
Title: Psychohelp. Or Psychohoax?

(proposal for an article) by Nancy Mackintosh

Religion, psychotherapy, and quackery are similar in that they are based on belief and public relations rather than in science. Both psychotherapy and some forms of quackery might, as it is claimed that religion does, bring support to the emotionally distressed. Psychotherapy and quackery are also similar in that they typically do not provide assistance with real life problems. They tend to operate in another sphere. It is not their role to provide information or specific advice. Maybe some practitioners, like some members of the clergy, do both, but Freudian psychotherapy in particular, also called psychodynamic psychotherapy, is not geared to it. Some therapists have even expressed the view that focus on the practical issues in daily living was an evasion of real problems, the psychic ones. The truth is that it might get them into dangerous territory that they understandably and inevitably prefer to avoid, as they are seldom in any position to alter the patients environments. As one critic said on an Internet list, From the writings of psychologists, themselves, the thesis grows that psychotherapy should not be given the support that it has received from a gullible public.

Walt liked the idea of muckraking psychotherapy. He felt that the time was ripe. Nancy would not know until much later another reason behind Walts enthusiasm for the project. Bubbles sometimes burst when they are so full of hot air that the merest prick deflates them. Nancy had learned a lot from her reading, but it was Ruth Payne to whom she was most indebted. Of course, Nancy was surprised to get her message. She even thought at first of calling Pervis about it, but was everlastingly glad that she had not. Ruth was right that no one would understand. Nancy had read about

The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov

Ruth in the course of the research she did about her husband, and she seemed like a serious and sensible person. Nancy did not expect the jealous wife, and she didnt get it. After Ruth had read the formal complaint, she felt that Nancy would be equipped to make more reasonable decisions if she was provided some additional information. The truth was that Ruth could not see her husband continuing as he was; his profession was flawed and, in her view, he needed to be able to accept that fact. Ruths decision to meet with Nancy was based on the premise that this was a rare opportunity to place ideas before the public that would otherwise not get through. In her mind, she was not truly being disloyal to Peter, however it might have seemed so, had it been known. The two women met at a restaurant in a neighboring town. Ruth came straight to the point, over salad. She said that, although the whole story was too complicated to tell in the few hours they would have together, there were certain aspects of the situation that Nancy might like to know about in the interest of truth and accuracy. I feel loyalty to my husband, Ruth said, and I do not want him to suffer more than can be avoided, but Ive had grave doubts about those who train and certify clinical psychologists for a long time. Their credentials give them the legal ability to interfere sometimes drastically in peoples lives, and yet their procedures arent based in science. In fact, consistent evidence of their effectiveness is much weaker than their image suggests. It seemed imperative to Ruth that Peter not know about their meeting. Some day he might understand, but that time had not come. Their meeting lasted all evening. After dinner, they went to Nancys apartment to talk further. There was a lot to discuss. Ruth explained that the suit would change character if Love Two were taken into account. She also knew that something called Love Two Theory would help Nancy to understand what had happened in her past relationships with men. Ruth recommended two books, both of which had been published some years earlier, but the messages of which had still not penetrated public or scientific consciousness. The Alan Browne book was important to understanding Love Two. The Pamela Cushing book, Patient, Beware!, offered an even stronger criticism of psychodynamic, or Freudian, psychotherapy than Nancy had yet encountered. Although published in the mid-seventies, their messages had not gone out of date during the intervening quarter-century, the scientific status of psychotherapy had not changed, and Love Two had not been investigated. Ruth and Nancy compared notes. They had covered much of the same ground. They had read House of Cards, by Robyn Dawes; Manufactured Victims, by Tana Dineen; Out of Its Mind, by J. Allan Hobson and Jonathan A. Leonard; and many others. Nancy had arrived at much the same conclusion as had Ruth. They also realized that exposure of some of the weaknesses of psychotherapy would be throwing a juicy bone to the health insurance companies that would welcome a rationale for removing psychotherapy from their list of legitimate medical treatments, but the two women agreed that a greater good would be served by bringing the truth to light, even if it did aid the causes of certain not otherwise reputable large corporations and even if it forced Peter Young to face the truth about his profession. (Nancy would learn only during the trial that she had been able to hire Pervis at a fraction of his usual fee because Walt Harris was covering the difference between what she could pay and what Pervis demanded. Walt had said that he saw a major story here, and therefore wanted her to continue. However, he did not inform her at first that the money to stimulate publicity about the issue came from insurance companies who could gain by denouncing psychotherapy and, thereby, convincing people that it was not a reliable medical procedure and, therefore, not reimbursable.) For Nancy, Love Two was the real eye-opener, although it was not easy for her to take. Being attractive as well as outgoing, Ruth had said, actually increased the chances that she would inspire it without succumbing to it. The way Browne told it, Love Two was like a drug, or, better, it was like being touched with a magic wand; it was all or nothing. Nancy asked Ruth whether she thought that Peter was in that state. Ruth said she thought he was, although, if so, it was for the first time in his life.

A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It Limerence:

The unanswered question was why, if Love Two was so definite, was a highly trained and experienced practitioner unable to recognize it in himself and in the men she told him about? Why didnt Dr. Young explain to her what she had learned from reading Brownes book? The answer went to the heart of the matter. There were many references to Brownes book in the first few decades after its publication, in 1981, but no further really relevant research until recently, when neuroscientists began to correlate brain images with emotion. Ruth said that she and her associate were also conducting Love Two-related research, although there wasnt time to go into the details. Ruth told Nancy that Peter was in for a difficult time and she wanted to be there as support not as an enemy in the nest. Nancy had been angry with Dr. Young at first, but she felt, and Ruth confirmed, that he was good at heart, only misguided. Ruth wasnt happy to think about the battering he and his profession would take on the stand, but believed that it would be best, whatever happened, if Nancy were fully informed. Ruth and Nancy, who would likely never meet again or acknowledge each other if they did, found, in a single evening, that they had become permanent friends.

ow everything fit together. The problem was in Peters training. During the trial, he appeared as less of a person for having bought the American Psychoanalytic Association line, and for having rejected Love Two Theory. But the pathetic confusion in which the poor man turned this way and that, endeared him to all who witnessed it all except the most hard-hearted. Only people who did not know Dr. Young personally took a different view. And the judge was a real softie. The truth, Ruth firmly believed, was that if she had she not met with Nancy, it would have been much worse. Peter was wrong; he could not be spared, no matter how things went. His sin was inevitable, given the circumstances. But the major fault lay with the profession that certified, but failed to provide adequate training. Love Two theory that romantic love is distinct and involuntary had been around for many years. Peter and his field did not live up to the responsibility of their calling to have ignored something so important to those whose lives they held in their hands. Peters main problem was failing to deviate from his interpretation of what he had been taught. It wasnt clear whether Peter Young had or had not violated the psychologists ethical principles. The principles themselves were not consistent. There was much written in the psychological literature about how a therapist should handle countertransference, but the term was empty of genuine meaning. It assumed a certain unreality that amorous inclinations the therapist feels for the patient is not really a feeling for the patient, but for something else, something that was transferred from elsewhere. In any case, there was no way that Peter could be spared, because what he was doing was wrong, even if it was not exactly his fault. Ruth had made everything clear. She said that she followed, or tried to

The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov

follow, the doctrines of science. It was the sense in which science was not a substitute for religion, and yet was itself a kind of religion. Surely, she said, the same brain cells function for both. The creed was basically one also found in religions, but honored mainly in the breach. A scientist like Ruth, and her colleague, Carol Eisman, held to a kind of faith that the best way to go was through science at all times and in all ways. Thats why she could not see any good coming from a trial in which Nancy was ignorant of Love Two and why, although she wanted to spare Peter as much as possible, she would not try to spare him if the cost was misrepresentation. Knowing that Nancy understood what she would never have understood so well without their meeting, Ruth felt freed of any obligation to make a public statement and, thereby, felt better able to give the emotional support to Peter that he would need. Or so she supposed. As she later told the court, Nancy found Dr. Youngs interpretations increasingly ludicrous. She did not question that the man might be helpful to some kinds of people in some kinds of situations, but felt that he was entirely wrong about her situation, and she trembled to think of his probable effect on more disturbed and more trusting patients. It was in the nature of things that he had no reliable way of judging the effects of his treatments. After the meeting with Ruth, Nancy continued to prepare for the upcoming trial. Exploring the Internet turned up even stronger criticism of psychotherapy. One writer called it neither professional nor safe and the cause of serious harm. Recovered memories of sexual abuse had been, according to one writer, pure fantasy induced by the hypnotic aspect of the therapy process. Furthermore, some articles said that the self-focus encouraged by psychodynamic psychotherapists led to unhealthy self-involvement that diminished focus on important aspects of life and that interfered with other relationships. She easily gathered protests from many websites concerning the psychiatric industry, as they called it. Thus Nancy found herself a participant into what threatened to become a full-fledged confrontation, with passion on both sides. Even before the trial began, a nationally known lawyer said that attorneys were involved in the issue because mental health associations are lax in monitoring the abuses of their own members. Legislators in at least two states had attempted to force changes by introducing bills to reform deceptive and injurious practices, but, unsurprisingly, industry money had successfully fought all such proposals. In short, the more digging Nancy did, the more she found criticisms and complaints. Dr. Young, meanwhile, having expired the subject of her failed love tales, had emphasized dreams, fantasies, and even tried the unstructured, unproductive process of free associations, until the content of the sessions were considerably changed from what they had been at the beginning. Nancy also began to note familiar signs in how he looked at her and subtle things about the way he behaved. For example, he walked her to the door at the end of a session, as if he didnt want her to leave. Peters body language and even the tone of his voice reminded Nancy of those other times and those other men. n the stand, Nancy would claim that her friend, Millie Webber, had mentioned the book Love Two. Millie actually had told Nancy about it a few weeks before the trial, but only after Ruths suggestion did she read the book. Nancy and Millie had often confided details of their relationships with men to each other. Millie was like Nancy, smothered not smothering; only she handled it differently. Millie decided that she liked the attention, married the first really good one, and now had three kids. But her husband had recently shown signs of possible infidelity, and she was beginning to feel things she had never felt before. Anyway, Millie said that Love Two frightened her for what it might mean in her life, should it happen to her husband for another woman. She was pretty convinced that Nancys five failed relationships were due to the guys having been in a state of Love Two, which, she said, was not the same as love, as Nancy now knew only too well.

A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It Limerence:

Nancy now knew that being in love, a condition she had not experienced, was on another planet from love in the sense of caring for someone and wishing them well. She had not felt cared for so much she was asked to care for them; but, until Nancy read Brownes book, she had no real conception of what those poor men were going through, including Len, and how, without meaning to, she had led them on. If she had known, she would have behaved differently. Now that she knew, she would never let it happen again. Most people dont know what Browne discovered about Love Two, and it was easy to see why. Those who had not experienced it, and even many who had, saw it as pathology. Those caught in its in its negative, lovesick throes could not describe it except in poetry, which was ambiguous by definition and intention. These things made it difficult, even impossible, to subject the phenomenon to scientific study. Browne had not attempted to publish in the scientific journals, until after Love Two had begun to be cited regularly as a historical reference, and after one professor called it a classic, and the publisher called it a permanent book. Love Two theory had also impressed Nancy for its social, and even its legal, implications. As far as Dr. Young and psychotherapy was concerned, Nancy had three questions: (1) Why had Dr. Young not discussed Love Two with her? (2) Could it be that he knew nothing about it? And (3) had he contracted the condition himself, with her as its object? According to Love Two principles, if she gave him anything remotely resembling hope for reciprocation, she would be feeding the flame. Nancy recalled the case of Jean Harris, the headmistress who killed the diet doctor. At the time, it all meant little except as another example of news stories about people and circumstances that were foreign to her. She had accepted the general view that Harris was jealous as well as dependent on him for the drugs he supplied her. Browne showed that Dr. Tarnoff could have been being what he considered to be a good friend, one who cared for her welfare, but no longer cared for her as a lover. Maybe he was a sincerely good and caring guy who had innocently led her on with what he saw as appropriate caring for a person he had loved at one time and who he knew cared for him. It was the way Nancy had been with Len. It was wrong. If you understand what Love Two is, the only intelligent way to handle becoming its object is to exit fast. Anyway, thats what she learned from Browne. But she still was not sure. She did not want to do Dr. Young an injustice; maybe she was so sensitized after her experiences, and after reading the book, that she saw Love Two at its worst under every rock. Then Young removed her doubts about the state he was in when he showed his hand with that audacious and unseemly action. It was true that she had not yet learned about Love Two at that time, but her instincts had been forged by past experience. hat single little incident that started it all went like this: In his quaint and almost old-fashioned way one of the things she thought she had liked about him he had said, Nancy. He had not previously called her by her first name. Up until then it had always been Ms. Mackintosh. It was at the end of the session and they were both standing. He stepped closer to her and said, Let us admit our true feelings. Nothing else would be therapeutic. True feelings? she said. To her horror, he replied, I love you, and from your actions I know that you feel the same about me. Nancy recoiled, visibly negative, indeed, horrified. There was more she might have said to him, but she didnt stop to think. She just wanted to get out of there. All she said was, No. Dont But she was out the exit door, through the narrow hallway, and into the street before she could finish her sentence. Yes, she might have lingered to hear what more he might say, but his action was less a surprise than it was a confirmation of what she had begun to surmise. The following week, when she did not show up for an appointment that she had assumed was cancelled, Dr. Young telephoned her, apologized for what he said (must have sounded like something undesirable), particularly for leaving it until the end of the session. He

The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov

said that he had been trying to initiate a reenactment of her prior experiences in order that they could come to the surface for examination, but that Nancy had left so quickly that there had not been time to explain. His voice seemed shaky, almost pleading. He went on hurriedly, In a single final session or two we may now gain total relief from your problem. We have scored a therapeutic breakthrough, and we dont want the effects to die unborn. Those were his words: a therapeutic breakthrough. But by then Nancy knew too much to fall for what seemed obviously to be a rationalization, even if he didnt realize it. Nancys feeling was that such an incident should not have happened, that it was, to say the least, as unprofessional as it would have been coming from a physician, lawyer, or politician. But since psychotherapists are supposed to know about such things, it was worse coming from him. Had Nancy not armed herself with a study of his field, she would have been intimidated. Instead, she told Walt about it, and it was he who recommended that she sue for return of the fees she had paid for a therapy that was not what it was claimed to be. She had been cooperative with Dr. Young. Maybe she should have voiced her suspicions, but it would have been accusatory. She had felt a little guilty about having switched roles when Walt began paying the bill and Nancy began making notes for the story he would publish. But she was responding to changes in what was happening during the sessions. Dr. Young had also switched roles. Psychotherapy turned out to be a more explosive topic than Nancy had anticipated. During the trial, the world was divided into those who loathed her and those who supported her. She received hate mail from people who claimed that psychotherapy had saved their lives. She also received impassioned letters, usually anonymous, from others who said that they had been damaged by the so-called help of psychotherapy. One man believed that the stigma of therapy had cost him his job, that the field was bogus, and that she was to be commended for fighting it. Ed Pervis, the lawyer Walt Harris had found for Nancy, was a man with a national reputation, based on his work on a half dozen well-publicized cases. After listening to the details of her story, Pervis understood that Nancys complaint was that if Dr. Young in the role of psychotherapist allowed himself to fall in love with his patient, and then he was not able properly to function as therapist. This was the essence of the case. Nancy therefore rightfully accused him of fraudulent behavior and was justified in suing him for return of the fees she had paid him as well as for appropriate compensation for the time and trouble his actions had caused her. Dr. Young had violated the trust he received as a member in good standing of a respected profession. When he made that romantic overture, he revealed himself to be biased against seeing the very issues his client had brought to him, and for which he had clearly assured her that he would be able to help. In other words, Dr. Young had apparently been so lacking both in self-awareness and in understanding of his patients problem that he thrust her into the very situation that was her reason for consulting him. Under Pervis skillful questioning, Nancy testified that, until that day, she had held out some hope that what she thought she saw in Dr. Young was not really there. She had seen what she thought were signs, but she argued herself out of believing their obvious significance. Dr. Young had, in fact begun to see her and to treat her as had the other men in her life, and when that transpired, out went friendship, and, certainly, out went therapy. She did not deny his honesty or his conscientiousness. She could see him fighting with himself. His professional training should have provided a solution. What he revealed by his declaration of romantic love was the failure of his training, a rottenness about where he had placed his own faith. She knew that this was a hard blow for a conscientious man, and she had no doubt that Peter held high standards of honesty for himself. She was not happy about it, but she felt it had to be done. It was not that she wanted to hurt him. She might have been flattered. Someone else might have been flattered, but Nancy knew too well from past experience what it meantit meant that he, himself, had fallen into the state of Love Two, and it also meant that he was not acting appropriately. Nancy saw it as fundamental intellectual dishonesty. Disclosure could bring his whole psychotherapeutic edifice crashing down. Maybe if the false memory scandals had not occurred throughout the previous decade, the public reaction might not have been so extreme. But this was a second blow, and it hit at the heart of the public image of the talking cure. In short, it kicked out the whole psychodynamic bit. It would no longer support counseling without the attainment of actual goals; it would clean out the remnants of the old majesty of the

A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It Limerence:

Freudian image. Patients and former patients could see things in a new light and could begin to speak up about their dissatisfactions. Undermining the prestige of the profession decreased the possibility of personal danger. It took the field down to size at a time when the insurance companies were crouching and ready to spring. Peters little incident untied the thin thread on which clinical psychology had hung. Nancy also understood that finding Peter guilty would mean letting the real demons off the hook. It also meant that she would win whatever the outcome, especially with her boss footing the legal bills. If Dr. Young were to be declared innocent, then it was the agency that certified him that would bear the brunt of public disapproval. Ironically, Nancy would prefer that result. Browne said that in all the years since Love Two was published, the only psychologists to approach him were the occasional students who had not yet learned that study of romantic love via self-report was verboten if you want to get published. What distressed him was that, to a woman (for they were all female), they asked him for a copy of his Love Two Scale. He would reply gently, while furious inside that he had been unable to communicate the message that Love Two was a state that a person either was or was not in. There was no personality scale in an either-or situation, because intensity of feeling at any given time depended on external conditions. Nancy hoped that the trial would accomplish Brownes mission.