Abstract
ABSTRACTThis article extends psychoanalytic theories of “holding” and “psychic skin” to examine the containing function of romantic love. It argues that love can function to organize our inner world, helping our lives feel coherent and protecting us from what feels externally threatening, whether projected elements of our own psyches, the risk of breakdown, or true dangers existing in reality. The containing function of love is looked at through instances where it fails, and loss of love precipitates psychic disintegration. Through clinical examples and studies of two novels, Elena Ferrante’s Days of Abandonment and Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, this article proposes that living and loving without illusions of certainty opens possibilities for integrated love with whole and imperfect objects.
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