this book is an interdisciplinary study of shared feeling as imagined in eighteenth-century ethics, romantic literature, and twentieth-century psychoanalysis. the book concludes with accounts of empathy and unconscious communication in the psychoanalytic setting, revealing the persistence of romantic preoccupations in modernity. the work is principally multifaceted in its aims and subject matter, offering a critical exposition of its target texts for primarily historical and literary purposes. . .

. . yousef makes a bold claim about romantic-era literature’s intervention in …

most of the world’s religions place a high value on the experience and expression of love. yet the more children are loved, the more they later learn to love others as they form relationships and have families of their own. whether they are relationships that involve being “in love” or ones that involve the love of friendship, they bring warmth, connection, and a sense of belonging to people’s lives. as people grow older and mature, they have love relationships that …

there are many temptations to organize our life around the experience of earlier trauma. in robert sternberg’s triad of love—passion, intimacy, commitment—the intimacy stage of a relationship predominates as the passionate stage wanes. intimacy is not a flight from the self but a celebration of the self in concert with another person. the continual process of discovery that comes with intimacy does not always concern facts. over time, this subverts the equal emotional exchange necessary for true intimacy; a counterfeit …

people with disabilities get the message that “because your body is so different, it’s going to be hard to find someone to ‘look past those issues’ and see you for who you really are.” the greatest challenge that people with disabilities experience when it comes to sex is society’s beliefs about sexuality and sexual relationships, notions such as, “why would anybody choose to be with somebody with a disability when they could have a nondisabled person?” and contrary to the …

while this is true to a great extent, a lack of physical intimacy in marriage can wreak havoc on your married life and affect you in numerous ways. being stuck in a platonic relationship and having to deal with your advances being shot down or ignored, time after time, can lead you to doubt your ability to satisfy or please your spouse. being unhappy in a marriage because of the lack of physical touch in a relationship clouds your judgment …