Customer Reviews

The Alchemy of Love and Lust

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I really liked this book. I found it informative, well written and easy to read. The information it presented about our hormonal makeup was fascinating. This book has good information about our different sexual hormones and the ways they influence our thinking, actions and relationships from birth to old age. It certainly helped me to understand how the complex interaction of sexual chemicals within our bodies affects our lives in so many different ways. This book is really packed with great information. I found it especially helpful in understanding the "chemical bonding" that happens between two people. It also has great information about Estrogens and Progesterones and their use in Hormone Replacement Therapy. I would recommend it for adults of all ages, who are looking to understand their bodies, but as a menopausal women I found it especially insightful. I loved it so much I bought 5 copies to share with family members and friends and I've told numerous people about this book.

The insight of how the range of hormones effects the F/M relationship was wonderful! Hormones is what makes love happen...It explains how these hormones control our thought, how we perform, and the part they play in our associations from birth on up. This book also gives information about Progesterone's and Estrogens and the use of these in Hormone Replacement Therapy. It helps you see and understand the actual chemical bonding which happens between F/M.

This is generally a good book but it is good as a reference book on hormones far more than as a relationship book. If you want a list of each hormone, and then some, it is here and so is the behavior connected with each hormone and each combination of hormones. But in the end it does not even pretend to tell you what to do. It stops far short of being actionable probably because the author is a medical doctor rather than a psychologist or philosopher. Books like the Mars/Venus book and The 91% Factor: Why women Initiate 91% of Divorce pick up on how you deal with the behavior caused by hormones.

This book is easy to read and explains in layman's terms the effects of hormones on sexuality and emotions. For people that are noticing hormonal changes in their bodies it can be explanative. For me personally it leaves a lot of unaswered questions relating to my sexual an d physical health, and has compelled me to seek professional guidance. I have tried to find the Crenshaw Clinic that is mentioned in the book but have been unable to do so and now I'm trying via the webb site. I bought the book for friends and for my boss. Any help in finding the clinic would be appreciated.

Very impressed with this book, especially compared to the others on the market covering this general subject. The roles of the various hormones in male/female relationships was especially valuable and insightful. Best of all, the author would sometimes tell you what science doesn't know! How humble and honest. Her acknowledged speculations were also fascinating. Might just save your relationship. Another reviewer criticized it for not being a "relationship" book. They missed the point that hormones make a "relationship" - otherwise its just a room mate situation. Remember the saying "Love conquers all." ? Hormones make love happen and love helps us overcome the certain frictions in a "relationship". Too bad that most of her prescriptions require a prescription and hence an MD.

Do you want to know what makes men and woman tick?, how they work on the inside?, what chemistry really is? - then look no further. This book is extremely revealing in that ive learnt that even an intimate cuddle can produce a chemical called oxytocin. And thats not all your learn. You will learn much more than a few buzz words in this book, what they are, how they are generated by the body and affected by external elements too - I highly recommend it to anyone that is even the slightest curious about all those feel good chemicals that our bodies produce during cuddling, menopause and even orgasm - its all in here. I found this an excellent book and companion resource for my NLP and psychology study.

THis is a fantastic book with information that everybody NEEDS to know. It will greatly improve your understanding of relationships and hopefully your quality of life as you get older. The book is very well researched and very descriptive - though it can be quite difficult to take in all the info at times. However - there are very useful summaries at the end of each section in each chapeter which summarise the main points.

Everyone should read this book before they think they are madly in love. It will help anyone discern whether it is the chemistry of our hormones or real love, or maybe both. In our lives it is often "hard to see the forest for the trees". This would help alot of people avoid making life mistakes.

I see two areas for critiquing this book, the book objective and the science referenced. On the book objective, alchemy, I see this as an excellent reference book. On the science referenced, this book is poor at best. Love and lust exist in context with one another. A scientist studying love does not see "a mystery" but a tangible, understandable phenomenon. Like electricity, love is hard to explain; however scientists understand how it functions. Studying sex outside of the context of love seems fruitless, an error common to sex therapists.

The author of this book contributes interesting material on the important biochemicals (dopamine, estrogen, progesterone, LHRH, testosterone, prolactin, oxytocin, and others) that influence and help to regulate the universe we think of as "human sexuality." You will learn more than a few things. It seems that a working knowledge of high levels of testosterone can teach us quite a lot. (Women, proceed with caution!)

Unfortunately, she neglects other factors (and there are so many that make up human choices in love and sex: psychology, for example - and whether or not a couple has a single thing besides the kids to talk about after twenty-five years of marriage) that for me the information loses any authority it might have had.

In addition, she has an ax to subtly grind, and it is that men and women in their fifties (and older) have the very best chance for sexual compatability - for a set of specific chemical and biologically determined reasons. This information would seem to argue for couples staying together, but as we know, there are many other factors beyond sexual compatability (which is often fully present in couples who are literally coming apart - in every other way) that must contribute to couples' happiness - not to mention fidelity.

This book has interesting information about biochemicals' influence on our sex and love lives. You will doubtless recognize yourself and your mate in some of her descriptions, but as science it should be taken with a large grain of salt.