Lesson 28: Love, Intimacy, Puzzle Pieces


Attention

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tepests and is never shaken
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it our even to the edge of doom.
if this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

-William Shakespear


Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson's material, students will be able to:

  • Apply an understanding of both identity development and intimacy development to a personal analysis
  • Critically analyze the Puzzle Pieces theory in light of your reading, experience, and personal insight.

Teaching

Adult Relationships

According to Erikson, this stage of life (Stage 6) has to do with Intimacy (vs. Isolation). As much as we may think about intimacy in terms of a romantic relationship, intimacy can happen with many people.

Friendships

Adult friendships tend to have the following:

  • affective, or emotional, basis
  • shared or communal nature
  • sociability and compatibility

We pick our friends based on the available people around us and based on our interests. Sometimes friends grow from our "gang" when we were teens (remember the importance of friends that was discussed earlier in the textbook).

One thing that I have observed is that men's relationships tend to be based on activity (job, hobbies, sports, games) and represent individuals that they can DO things with.

Women, on the other hand, have relationships based more on intimate sharing and "problem talk" (basically, talking about personal problems and issues that they may share).

When we deal with cross-sex relationships (friends or otherwise) we can sometimes see a conflict between the men who want to DO something with their female friends while those same friends want to TALK with their male counterparts!

Love Relationships

One of the best models out there to explain love is by Robert Sternberg...his "Triangular Theory of Love"

Sternberg supported the notion that there are three elements to love:

  • Intimacy (knowing the person well, closeness, bondedness, warmth)
  • Commitment (decision to make the relationship continue)
  • Passion (desires to be with the person, including, but not limited to, sexuality)

 

This chart reveals the different kinds of friendships and love relationships that result when different elements are present.

This theory is a basic underpinning of my work with Puzzle Pieces

Puzzle Pieces

Click HERE for an overview of my Puzzle Pieces model for understanding the development of relationships. Understand that this has not been empirically tested...that is still to come...but I feel it makes for great discussion on the ways in which relationships start and develop over time.


Assessment

Lesson 28 Discussion

In this discussion I would like each of you to reflect on the interplay of identity (the person you were and the person you are becoming) and intimacy (personal relationships with friends and lovers over the years).

How do these two concepts interact with one another? How well do you think the Puzzle Pieces theory/model integrates these ideas?