The Possession.

 The book Possession was a pretty interesting book. The author speaks about how her relationship ended with her partner for six years. She was madly in love with him and the thought of him being with another woman drove her crazy. She was literally obsessed with his new lover. She thought about this woman throughout the day and everything in society brought a picture to her mind of this woman. She would not be able to stop until she could find out everything that she needs to know about this new woman. I thought in a way her still having some sort of relationship with her ex-boyfriend did not help her healing process at all. I feel that as long he was still in the picture the more obsessed she was going to become. She did absurd things such as trying to find out about her on the internet and asking people if they may know who exactly she is. I think this relates to another reading that we had in class that when it comes to passion and when people are hurt they don't have the capability of thinking rationally about their actions. She ended up not putting so much thought to this woman when she wrote on paper that that she didn't love her EX anymore and by not seeing him. If she would have had that mentality from the beginning there is a possibility that she would have not suffered this long, but it seems as if she was telling herself that she was still in love with him and this woman. These routines were more like bad habits that were becoming hard to get rid of.

Triangular Theory of love

I learned that the theory of love consists of three components which are intimacy, passion, and decision/commitment component. The component I feel is the strongest is intimacy because it is the bonding and the closeness that one feels in a relationship. If there is no intimacy in a relationship than what is the point of committing to each other. Those three components can be combined together to represent 8 different extremes, which seemed to be rational to me because not everybody has the same type of relationships which makes one understand these differences. One of the extremes that I found interesting was The Decision/commitment component Alone: Empty because I feel that this is common within couples that have been together for a very long period of time. They may feel as if they are already comfortable with each other that may not want to start over because of certain things that they got used to. They mention that empty love usually happens in the last stage of relationships, but it can also happen in cases like an arranged marriage. A question that I asked myself is can an empty love convert to passion in the future. The ideal type of love seems to be the Consummate which means that all 3 components of love are present. At the same time I think this may be the hardest to achieve as it is inevitable for one of the components to wane.

Picture blogs.

The "Obsession for Men" image relates to what we talked about in class in that men can become obsessed with their body image. They become , that some will make exercise into a daily, sometimes excessive routine. Exercise is important, but when it is missed can turn into a huge problem. It becomes less about health and more about achieving a certain image. This can in turn lead to excessive trips to the gym and use of supplements. Just like we discussed that anorexia can be linked to OCD , so can this. People are led to anorexia when they are unhappy with their image. Also, not having the body image the media portrays can lead one to think that they are not good enough

http://www.umassmed.edu/uploadedimages/StudentStudying.jpg:

 This picture, in my opinion, can represent monomania. When individuals are specialized in a specific field they tend to only focus on that. They feel it is crucial to know every detail in their specialized areas of study. This can be time consuming, and like OCD can affect their relationship with others. Some become so wrapped up that they lose sleep and track of everything. This has a huge toll and their lives.

chapter 3

 Chapter 3 in the Davis book tries to show that being mad and obsessed is a result of modernity. It is basically saying that these types of behaviors are normal in modern day society. It is said that specialization can be an obsession. I never thought that specialization can be compared to obsession. But after reading this chapter I looked at it from another perspective. One can get so caught up in their specialized fields, that they might feel they need to know every bit of information that there is out there on whatever it is that they are specializing in. And when they do not feel they know everything can in turn be dissatisfied. We are not brought up to believe that specializing in something and obsessions have a correlation. I also found the case of Galton interesting. He thought there was an order for everything including including inherited traits. Even though he was a brilliant man that came up with scientific results, he said he suffered from brain symptoms. His explanation was that he was being to zealous and overworking. While he was characterized as being obsessed he made great achievements and also invented eugenics. Everything he did led to progress. Seeing the story of Galton can make one see obsessions in a positive light if something good is coming out of it. Something that I found randomly interesting in this chapter was the female Hottentot Venus. I think it is bizzare that someone was actually exhibited because they are classified as different.