Ever since the beginning of recorded history, humans have been trying to understand and explain the mysteries of love and sex. Over the past few decades, scientists started using specialized equipment to measure physical arousal by attaching devices to private parts. More recently, they’ve been observing the most important romantic organ in the human body—the brain.
Forbes wrote about the research of Andreas Bartels, Ph.D., at the Imperial College of London. Bartels used a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine, which can capture images of brain activity, to pinpoint the areas of the brain that are activated by love.
Bartles did a study of 17 people who were madly in love. He had the test subjects look at photos of platonic friends and of their loved ones while he observed activity in their brains. The resulting images clearly showed that certain sections of the brain are stimulated by love.
The scientist then did another study to observe the brains of mothers looking at their infants. The images showed that exactly the same areas of the brain were stimulated by maternal love, except for an area in the hypothalamus in the base of the brain that seems to be linked to sexual arousal.
The conclusion, therefore, is that specific areas of the brain light up at the prospect of love.
Bartels also noticed something else: When the test subjects were feeling love, certain areas of the brain were turned off. The scans showed that three regions of the brain generally associated with moral judgment go dim.
Chemistry of love
Then there’s the chemistry of love. Helen Fisher, Ph.D., a professor at Rutgers University, has written that three networks in the brain, and their associated neurotransmitters, are associated with love. They are:
- Lust—the craving for sexual gratification, which is linked to testosterone in both men and women.
- Romantic attraction—the elation and yearning of new love, which is linked to the natural stimulants dopamine and norepinephrine, and low activity in serotonin.
- Attachment—the calm emotional union with a long-term partner, which is linked to oxytocin and vasopressin.
Fisher also did a study using fMRI technology. She scanned the brains of 40 men and women who were wildly in love. When these people gazed at photos of their beloved, the scans showed increased activity in the areas of the brain that produce dopamine. This neurochemical is associated with feelings of excessive energy, elation, focused attention and motivation to win rewards.
Dopamine, by the way, is also the neurotransmitter associated with addiction.
Effects of arousal
Research has also proven what we’ve probably all experienced—sexual arousal can make us throw caution to the winds.
In another study using fMRI technology, Dr. Ken Maravilla of the University of Washington found that sexual arousal dims down the parts of the brain that control inhibition and, perhaps, moral judgment.
“These are things that keep you in line, and in arousal they may become less active, allowing you to become more aroused,” Maravilla said, as quoted by Wired Magazine.
In a paper called, The Heat of the Moment: The Effect on Sexual Arousal on Sexual Decision Making, Dan Ariely, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and George Lowenstein, of Carnegie Mellon University, documented that being sexually turned on affected the judgment of college-aged men. (Well, duh ”¦)
Specifically, Ariely and Lowenstein found that, “the increase in motivation to have sex produced by sexual arousal seems to decrease the relative importance of other considerations, such as behaving ethically toward a potential sexual partner or protecting oneself against unwanted pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease.”
But another of their findings was, “people seem to have only limited insight into the impact of sexual arousal on their own judgments and behavior.” In other words, most of us don’t appreciate how strong the sex urges are, and how they can make us do things that perhaps we shouldn’t be doing.
Sociopathic seduction
So let’s look at all this information in the context of our relationships with sociopaths.
Two of the main strategies that sociopaths use to snare us are love and sex. They emphatically proclaim their love and consciously seduce us into having sex. So what happens?
- Love causes specific areas of the brain light up, and at the same time, areas associated with morals and judgment go dim.
- The areas of the brain that produce dopamine become active, and dopamine is related to addiction.
- Sexual arousal dims the parts of the brain responsible for inhibition and judgment that might prevent us from making bad choices.
- We don’t recognize the impact that sexual urges have on our judgment and behavior.
Dr. Helen Fisher writes that the three primary brain systems associated with love evolved over the ages to play different roles in courtship, mating, reproduction and parenting. They are Nature’s way of ensuring the survival of the human species.
Sociopaths convincingly proclaim their enduring love and their sexual desire for us. Not realizing the pervasive deceit of these predators, we believe that they love us. We have sex with them, and the sex is great. Many Lovefraud readers have been amazed at the sociopath’s sexual appetite and prowess.
Therefore, sociopaths hijack our brain through our feelings of love and the bonds of sex. In their seductions, they turn the natural psychological and chemical functions of our brains against us.
Blueskies,
I looked up the article that LTL was refering to on Love Fraud and that is not pertaining to what I was talking about that the woman described that she did with her father.
Maybe splitting isn’t the right “label” for this particular surviovor tool, or maybe it has more than one meaning. I didn’t label it myself because I didn’t know what it was called, (and still don’t) I just thought it was a brilliant “tool” to survive a beyond horrible ordeal.
Kathleen should remember this because I believe it was just yesterday (with ALL that went on yesterday here, its hard to remember) that she posted to me after I had posted about this to another.
Hey Witsend…i then found another article of Kathleens and posted it above that specifically talks about splitting..maybe that? Sry to have gone off in all directions…I was just hoping to lend insight to Blueskies in any way possible… Kathleen will hopefully know what you are referring to right away ! lol…
Thanks Witsend:)xxx no worries:)x there has to be information around on the interweb:) I will do some digging….tommorrow..:)
LTL, I think you are wonderful… I am overwhelmed and pretty all over the place SO! I am going to chill my boots a bit and look forward to finding more info and a sunny sunday:) I appreciate you and everything you do/say always.xxx “All shall be well and shall be well and all manner of things shall be well”…. in the morning;)xxx Nite nite.
Blueskies ((HUGS))… I thank you for expressing your vulnerabilities as well as your strengths… and I think you are well and are going to be well and well…I just think its a growth spurt and a rough spot that you will find information for and sort through… Sleep well… ease your mind tonight… I suspect you have a few busy days ahead of you (but ones you will learn and grow from). We are here for you…not letting you go anywhere!!! TOO VALUABLE TO LF!!! xox
blueskies, were both in the same timezone so sweet dreams! dont worry about anything. NIGHTY NIGHT!
blueskies, witsend, learnthelesson, and anyone else who is interested in the splitting concept. I did write briefly about it in a post earlier this week. I’m not sure where it is. But LTL found a good piece on the concept in the “Painful Shock” article.
This issue with the incest survivor who killed her father is a lot more to the point. She divided her relationship with him into two non-coherent states. In one, he was a dangerous and brutal abuser of her. In the other, he filled her needs for a loving parent. This is almost a textbook case of splitting, as I define it.
This is not exactly the way therapists use the term “splitting,” which is associated with the tendency of people with borderline personality disorder to see things — especially people — in black and white terms. But it essentially works out to the same thing in practice. We have “acceptable” and “non-acceptable” circumstances, perceptions, feelings, etc. that we maintain although they are contradictory in fundamental ways. (Acceptable: Daddy is good. Non-acceptable: Daddy is bad.)
This is essentially the same thing as disassociation. Except that rather than disassociation in real-time (drifting off because we can’t handle what’s going on), we’re disassociating with our memories. Another word for this is compartmentalization, but compartmentalization is actually an ongoing skill that comes with splitting or disassociation. We become able to maintain classes of information separate from other information, in order to survive in an incoherent situation.
Like our boss demands work that requires a 60-hour week while our cardiologist tells us that we need to invest at least three hours a days in exercise and naps while our home life requires us to meet the practical and emotional requirements of a spouse and children. In this case, we literally can compartmentalize ourselves to death, while we try to imagine which hat we’re supposed to be wearing every time we look at the clock.
Another issue in splitting is the what Jung called the dark or shadow sides of our psyches. What we have stored away as “bad” or unacceptable affects how we interpret reality. Gay men are painfully aware of potential violence of “closet” gays who may attack or kill “out” gay men as an extension of their fear and rejection of their own split-off and buried feelings. Likewise PSTD issues are often related to splitting, as are personality disorders including multiple personality and BPD, as well as “lesser” symptoms like chronic anxiety, codependency and addictions.
One of the most important reasons to revisit and resolve unresolved trauma is because in subsequent traumas our best coping strategy tends to be the farthest we got in resolving previous major traumas. And especially in childhood trauma issues, we frequently never got beyond emergency rewiring solutions, like splitting, because there was no healing support or it simply wasn’t safe to react normally to the trauma and get through the necessary healing process.
So that a survival solution, like splitting, can be our best strategy in all sorts of later traumatic situations. We may not make a conscious decision “not to think about it” or “not let it affect us,” but we have a sort of miraculous ability to sail through all kinds of horrors without really grasping what’s happening to us. Because we’re disassociating it — shoving it into the “unacceptable” closet with all the other things that don’t match our “acceptable” version of reality.
Of course, this isn’t psychologically healthy. At some level, we’re aware of the dissonance. And many of us, including me, feel like we’re not really ourselves. That there is some other “self” that we haven’t found. Which makes us very vulnerable to a certain type of love affair — one that feels like there is some mysterious wisdom or redemption offered by the other person. Something that is beyond our knowing right now, but we open our hearts and minds to it, because we are looking for something we can’t exactly name.
Oddly, relationships with sociopaths often turn out to be good medicine for this problem. From the perfect savior or complement to our “daylight” personalities, they turn into the perfect reflection of what we’re most afraid of. They surface a lot of what’s buried in us. We find ourselves reliving primal traumas, and often clearly seeing how those early coping mechanisms have been keeping us from healing, taking our lives back and understanding our full potential.
Apologies for taking so long to post this. I spent more time with my son than I expected, and it was very good time. Then I wanted to do a little research on splitting before I responded to make sure that my definitions weren’t completely out of what with how psychologists use the word. I hope this helps with your thinking about the splitting issue.
Kathy
Thanks kathleen, I really appreciate it its very interesting and useful information.
Ive done a stupid thing. I googled my ex this evening and unfortunately I found out how WELL he is doing. He has gotten some good opportunities and basically he is on a roll. It makes me sick to my stomach and so sad and angry at the same time. I know I should be wiser and ofcourse no contact definitely should mean not googling him. Why do I still do it. Its the addiction sort of I guess. I truly want to move on but when I look deeply into my soul I miss what we shared in the beginning so desperately much. he so made me feel like there was someone out there just like me or at least who understood me and valued me for exactly who I was. Ofcourse I have lovely friends but it doesnt compare. I wish he wouldnt have given me that feeling. I would never say all of this to anyone else, cause its pretty embarrassing to be missing such an abusive person. Its been embarrassing altogether. I wish I could press a button so as to never wanting to know about him. I guess I need more discipline with this? I dont know. He still occupies my mind obsessively and I constantly try to focus on my life but he seems to just sit in my brain, and how painful to know he just moved on just like that, after telling me he lives for getting older with me that that was his biggest wish in life. he just moved on. no problem for him. he is even on a roll with his life. doing fantastic. and i am fighting for mine. fighting everyday to have him out of my mind for as many minutes as possible. can you believe it. yes you all probably can….thing is its not heartbreak. people tell me , aw youre heart has never been broken before? and it drives me mad, cause yes my heart has been borken before, its not comparable AT ALL to this. this is raping someone’s soul, messing someone up bad. my biggest problem i have with him now is trying to not miss how he made me feel in the beginning. that went sooo deep. he really got in my soul. and then the twisting my soul began. now i can push that aside as his problem ( trying), sort of trying to forget about HIS abuse and working on the issues of why i let that happen myself. but the start thats harder. how do i make sure that never happens again, plus i find every man now dull! thats so bad! he had NOTHING to offer really yet i liked his conversations like nothing else. i need to get out there and start living again. i just feel like im not me. he messed me up so much that im afraid to be me. looking him up, knowing he is good kills me. i do it why. to find out how hopefully one day he starts drinking again, or something happens to him, but i shouldnt even want to know that. it shouldnt be about him. but that seems unrealistic now…..
QUOTE KATHLEEN: “One of the most important reasons to revisit and resolve unresolved trauma is because in subsequent traumas our best coping strategy tends to be the farthest we got in resolving previous major traumas. And especially in childhood trauma issues, we frequently never got beyond emergency rewiring solutions, like splitting, because there was no healing support or it simply wasn’t safe to react normally to the trauma and get through the necessary healing process. ”
Kathy, I think this is some pretty profound wisdom—and the part of the trauma that is what i call “pretending we are a nice normal family” while at the same time WALKING OVER COALS OF FIRE while pretending “all is well, I can handle this” and that our feet are NOT burning–is what I was trained to do as a child, young adult and even as a seemingly “mature” woman…even when I realized I had the capacity to DO THIS and that I WAS DOING THIS (I realized that when I was in college, my life was a total stress experiment etc) and yet I kept up the PRETENCE that “all was well”—in fact, I had a fellow student (a more mature woman) say to me that she wanted to be like me and not be stressed by all we were going through—I REMEMBER LAUGHING, “little do you know, woman” but it did tell me I was “succeeding” in my pretense of “all is well, I’m doing just fine”—I think I should have been an actress, because at the time I was going home every night, getting into the fetal position and crying myself to sleep.
Yet, even seeing this pretense in myself, I did nothing to change it, and it used up so much ENERGY I could have used for REAL HEALING, not “Faked” competence. Even now, when this is my “default” coping, I must watch for it returning, and not let the “pretending’ (to myself as well as others) creep backk in. It is difficult to change life-time coping skills. That is though what I am working on, and will I imagine have to work on for the rest of my life because they are SO INGRAINED.
Thank you for this insight.