Customer Reviews

What Is This Thing Called Love?

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I'm a single woman, not because I can't find love, but because I've been in love unsuccessfully. After two children, two divorces and a lot of dating, I decided I didn't know what love was. In the midst of dissatisfaction and frustration, I went to a psychologist who gave me What Is This Thing Called Love?-The essential book for the Single Woman. I was categorized and pegged quickly with the subtitle, and to my pleasant surprise, I learned that this book wasn't just for my "category" of women, but for all who love in an adult relationship. As numerous philosophers have stated, "love is the most important and least understood of all [human] behaviors."

Ann is a frustrated school teacher in a long-term comfortable relationship with Mark who says he loves her very much. They enjoy doing the same things together, but she is not completely satisfied, since their relationship has not progressed to her idea of what the next level should be after three years. Ann asks: "Why doesn't love mean the same to Mark as it does to me?" and "How do I find love if I don't know what it is?" Ann and Dr. Glasser meet and talk over time about love and relationship choices. Along with the reader, Ann learns essential lessons of Dr. Glasser's Choice Theory as they attempt to define LOVE in a non-therapeutic setting.

Even though this is a quick and easy read, it provides thought-provoking information about the concepts of love and its active and dynamic existence in a relationship. Many people don't really choose love; they just fall into it and expect "it" to meet their expectations. This book helps you to recognize the choices you make regarding love and identify how and why you may want to change them. This is a great introductory read leading to Dr.Glasser's books on Choice Theory.

The word "love" is so bandied about so much that even to use it in the title of a book can leave the reader feeling a little uneasy. Would a book called, "What is this thing called Love?" treat the most sought-after of all human experiences as an academic commodity? Would love, whatever it is, become a series of clinical concepts? Worse still, would the pages unfold as a litany of trite platitudes? Much as I admire the writings of Dr. Glasser, I began to read with certain trepidation. How would he approach a topic that in my opinion reaches beyond the realms of psychology? As if these doubts were not enough I found it somewhat daunting to note that the subtitle proclaimed it as a book for the "Single Woman". I was neither single nor female!

The book opens with a dialogue between Ann and Mark as they try to understand one another and the relationship between them. Dr. Glasser then explains how he got to know Ann and how they agreed to have conversations about the nature of love. And that is what this book is all about, those conversations. It is not therapy although the author and Ann soon reach a level of communication that is common to all good therapy. Glasser does use his extensive experience as a psychotherapist to help this young lady teacher clarify what is going on in her life. Most important of all he listens, he listens very carefully. In a sense this is action research where we are able to witness real people twist and turn as they tease out a living definition of the way they share their lives. There are no smart answers, no smart fixes, no attempt to say this is the way it should be for everyone in the universe.

As I read these pages, and I would have to admit that it was not always an easy read since it dealt with live human experience, I found myself doing a lot of thinking, not about ideas or guidelines but about the living out of love in my own life. That is probably the strongest point of this book. It is certainly not a piece of light reading nor an agony aunt's quick fix. This book was a journey for those who appear on its pages. I believe it becomes a journey for those who read it ... even men!