Abstract
This research focusses on understanding romantic love as a psychological and metaphysical search for unity. To help deepen the understanding of this subject, author Hartmut Rosa is integrated into the study by connecting his theory on resonance to theories on romantic love as the search for unity. The theory on resonance is then also used to interpret several consensual non-monogamous (CNM) relationships, namely swinging, open relationships, polyfidelity and polyamory.The key results of the study were that love can indeed be seen as the search for unity, with unity being somewhere on a gradual scale between complete fusion and duality, making it a complex phenomenon. Author Fromm and his theory on interpersonal union is somewhere in between these poles, Badiou views love as a search for the truth about difference, being more on the duality side of the scale, and Brogaard offers a counterargument against love as a union as a whole. The theory of resonance adds to the union theory with a notion of mutual transformative processes. Polyamory, according to the resonance theory, means resonating with multiple people which could have a positive effect on personal growth, self-efficacy and resonating to the world in general.
| Date of Award | 9 Jul 2023 |
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| Original language | English |
| Supervisor | Isolde de Groot (Supervisor) & Fernando Suárez Müller (Supervisor) |