The Ability to Love [Paperback]

Allan Fromme (Author), M. Powers (Designer)

Product Details

• Paperback: 366 pages
• Publisher: Wilshire Book Company; Revised edition (February 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879800003
• ISBN-13: 978-0879800000
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,665,774 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Your values may vary, April 12, 2007

By 

Elizabeth (Wisconsin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Ability to Love (Paperback)

A well written and practical psychological (especially Freudian) perspective on love as attachment. Discusses the ways disorders of the ability to love originate, particularly in childhood, and affect us through our lives in friendship, romantic love, parenthood etc, and the ways we can heal and have healthy attachments. I think different readers will relate to this book in different ways; I found its assumptions about what is normal were rather far away from the way I try to live my life. The book has a lot of emphasis on positive self image and getting one's needs met, and those with a spiritual perspective of cultivating humility and nonattachment as a basis for self-giving love may find this book hard to relate to and "worldly." In trying to read this book I was challenged to make a clear distinction between disordered psychology (for instance chronic, morbid feelings of inferiority and unworthiness) and the counterintuitive values of the spiritual life (for instance a generous spirit of humility and poverty, as in the Beatitudes) which require good psychological health for their full practice. The book did help me think about some of my problems constructively.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Relationship wisdom, April 14, 2006

By 

C. S. Javadi (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Ability to Love (Paperback)

I found Dr. Fromme's book while wandering in my university library, thinking as I opened it that it would be dated and old-fashioned. Not so. The book's observations are timeless, and its advice relevant to anyone regardless of his or her experience with relationships. I'm sure I don't need another book on this subject, that's how much I learned from it.

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful book, October 20, 2009

By 

Paul Zahradka (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Ability to Love (Paperback)

I really like this book cause it is well written, insightful and honest. At times it challenges the reader to be honest with themselves. My favorite thing about reading in general is to learn new ideas, and this book contains a great deal of insight into human behavior from a philosophical and psychological viewpoint. If you like new ideas that challenge conventional thinking then you will enjoy this book. I highly recommend it.