Renowned psychologist Robert Epstein believes that in the not too distant future, many people will share his unusual view of the relationship between men and women. The expert's point of view is that love can be "grown" in the soul consciously by making a volitional decision and choosing a suitable candidate.
The scientist invites those who are still lonely to think about his proposal - not to wait for mercy from nature and forge happiness with their own hands.
The main specialization of Robert Epstein was the creative abilities of adolescents and the peculiarities of their implementation. But when his marriage broke up, the psychologist seriously thought about the problems of inter-sex relations - and over time became a real expert in love affairs.
“Now I remember how my relationship with my wife developed, and I understand that we made completely common mistakes,” says 56-year-old Epstein. "When the painful emotions associated with the breakup of the marriage subsided a little, I began to regret that everything happened according to such a trivial scenario."
In 2002, a young woman came to him to interview him for her dissertation. During the conversation, she let slip that she had never in her life had the opportunity to fall in love. And Dr. Epstein was inspired by the idea - to make his new friend fall in love with someone. He developed a series of experiments in which he was going to involve her, but the girl did not want to take part in them. She motivated her refusal by her unwillingness to mix work and personal life.
Left without an object of research, the psychologist has not lost his desire to implement his bold idea. And I decided to experiment on myself. To begin with, Epstein found a suitable partner, and he was not particularly puzzled by the search. Once on the plane, he got into a conversation with a woman who was sitting in the next chair, told her about his plans and was so carried away by the idea of "man-made" love that his fellow traveler agreed to become his partner in a scientific-romantic project.
The scientist based his strategy on aspects of communication that, as psychologists have long proven, contribute to rapprochement between people - joint searches for adventures, sharing stories about their problems and empathy, gentle touching.
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The good news is that Epstein and the woman on the plane eventually fell in love with each other. The bad news is that their relationship was very brief. Since the scientist's companion lived in Venezuela, they saw each other in fits and starts, and such distances sooner or later kill any, even the most powerful feelings. But, despite the disappointment that befell him, the scientist was pleased, because he managed to fall in love and thereby prove his own righteousness regarding the possibility of consciously cultivating a romantic feeling in his soul.
This valuable experience has developed into the concept of "organized love", which Robert Epstein actively promotes among his compatriots. He is sincerely convinced that the idea of love as a spontaneous and spontaneous feeling is based on delusions inherent in our psyche almost at the genetic level.
“We grow up on fairy tales and films in which magical powers help people find their soul mate, and then live happily ever after with her, to die on one day,” explains the psychologist. "These fabulous ideas about the nature of human feelings make us vulnerable and make us rely on Destiny, which tends to be disappointing."
To uncover the secret of successfully building "organized love," Epstein began to study happy marriages. He got acquainted with the studies of his colleagues, which confirmed the hypothesis that the relationship between partners who chose each other as spouses quite consciously, several years after the wedding, turn out to be more durable than relationships in a marriage of great love.
Soon Epstein himself remarried - and claims that he found himself a wife according to all the rules of a successful union, so they are guaranteed a long and happy life together. Now the researcher teaches at the University of San Diego (California), where he teaches a course in psychology. He uses this opportunity to attract students as volunteers to conduct his "mating" experiments. Young people perform exercises developed by the scientist that promote rapprochement with acquaintances and even strangers.
Epstein's methods are quite simple: empathy arising from confidential conversations, synchronized breathing and prolonged eye contact. Almost all the students who tried this system later declared that they had a pleasant feeling of kinship with people who, quite recently, were strangers to them. Robert Epstein is tactfully silent about how this set of exercises helped him find family happiness, but everyone at the university knows that his wife came to several classes that her husband taught last semester. Apparently, in order to strengthen the existing connection between them.
Now the psychologist hopes to convert most Americans and, if possible, residents of other countries to his love faith. “Western civilization has given people a lot, but it never taught us to choose the right partner,” says Epstein. - In our progressive world, oddly enough, we sit and wait for a miracle, while we could create it ourselves. It is foolish to think that love is uncontrollable. Try it and you yourself will understand. Let there be no romance here, but in the end there is not much of it in our life.
NATALIA SINITSA