Leslie Becker-Phelps - Love: The Psychology of Attraction

Love: The Psychology of Attraction is an inspirational, easy-to-use eBook, packed with practical advice thats grounded in psychological research.

The eBook is divided into five chapters and more than 80 topics that cover every stage of a romancefrom finding the right person for you, to establishing a relationship and maintaining lasting happiness.

To navigate through the eBook, use the built-in links on the contents page. These will take you to the relevant chapter or topic. Throughout the eBook you will find infographics, self-analysis questionnaires, charts, and tables that make the scientific findings easy to understand and apply to your life. Many of these will enlarge for easier reading when you double tap on them. To continue reading, simply close the image using the X in the top corner.

E veryone yearns for that magical feeling of being inlove. But falling for someone is just the start: what we need most is an emotionallynourishing, caring relationship. Thats what we dream of, deep downnotjust a partner, but a soul mate. Sometimes, if weve been single for a long time,we can start to wonder whether we should just give upwe may even feelembarrassed for wanting romance as much as we do. If youve ever felt that way, Iwant you to know that by yearning for a relationship, youre simply feeling theway that nature intended. The science suggests that were born to be socialcreatures, deeply connected to those around us. As children, we bond passionately withour parents or caregivers; as adults, that need matures and transforms. We become filledwith the desire for romantic love. Love may not always be easy to find, but it isliterally the most natural thing in the world to want.

More than twenty years as a therapist have confirmed for me a simple insight: thatwhen we can give and receive love wholeheartedly, we are at our strongest. Thepsychological community as a whole is finding more and more empiricalevidencefrom decades of indepth studies to the latest brain imagingtechniquesthat we are biologically predisposed to yearn for that connection. Themore that researchers discover, the more we learn about how two people become attractedand how we can seek, find, and keep that love in ways that help both us and our belovedsto thrive.

In my work as a psychologist, I help people to understand how their life experiences,from early childhood up to the present day, can shape their expectations, theirsubconscious habits, and their relationships with othersand how, if thosepatterns are leading them away from the happiness they deserve, they can change them forthe better. Love: the Psychology of Attraction will help youmake a similar journey.

Every page is created to be as accessible as possible, with step-by-step advice,simple exercises, and scientific features revealing key studies and experiments. Ratherthan having to wade through dense psychology papers, you can read the findings of mycolleagues in a style thats easy on the eyes and the brain: the science is bothfascinating and encouraging for anyone who is searching for love.

This guide takes you through the process of finding love. Youll begin with themost fundamental part of finding a relationship, and also the most often overlooked:your relationship with yourself. You, after all, are what youll be bringing tothe relationship, and the science suggests that those of us who can get our own psychesin good order are the most likely to have the happiest relationships. After this, theguide then goesthrough the stages of searching for a partner: meeting new people, how to identify agreat prospect and how to spot a waste of time, and how to steer a safe, sane coursethrough the choppy waters of the dating scene.

Youll also learn about the psychology of establishing and maintaining a solidrelationship in the long term. Having just picked up this guide, itslikely that youre fairly early in this process, but do read the later chapters:if a solid long-term relationship is what youre aiming for, knowing what youwant equips you to weed out those who dont want or cant offer it.

To be clear: love is your biological foundationyour ancestral legacy.Its love that makes us human, and its love that keeps us alive as aspecies. Some of us are luckier in finding it than others, but if luck hasntbeen running your way, a bit of knowledge might just be what you need to give it a pushin the right direction. A guide cantconjure up Mr. or Ms. Right, but what it can do is build your confidence, yourpsychological health, and your positive habits. It can help you to nurture a greatercapacity to give and receive love, and send you into the dating scene as a newlyinformed expert. The world is full of people who want love, and one of them might justbe right for you.