The Road Less Traveled
    A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth
M. Scott Peck, M.D.

Love Is Not a Feeling

- Love is an action, an activity: love is not a feeling
- Genuinely loving individual will often take loving and constructive action toward a person he or she consciously dislikes, feeling no love toward the person at the time
- Feeling of love is the emotion associated with experience of cathecting
    - Invested with our energy as if it were part of ourselves
    - Withdrawing our energy: de-cathecting
    - We confuse cathecting with loving
    - Fact that we cathect another human does not mean that we care for that person's spiritual development
    - Frequency/intensity of cathexes has nothing to do with wisdom or commitment
    - Cathexes may be fleeting/momentary
- Genuine love implies commitment and the exercise of wisdom
- Commitment is cornerstone of psychotherapy
    - Doctor listens to patient, like it or not
- When couples fall out of love, their love begins to be tested
    - Is love really present?
    - Opportunity for real love begins
- Real love exists independently of cathexis: with or without a loving feeling
- Person who truly loves does so because of a decision to love
    - Made a commitment to be loving whether or not the loving feeling is present
- Feelings of love may be unbounded, but capacity for true loving is limited
    - Choose the person on whom to focus capacity to love
- True love is committed, thoughtful decision

True love involves a commitment to love the other person, whether or not the feeling of love is immediately present.  It is an action, rather than a feeling.