We have already talked about falling in love and acceptance. But love, of course, is a much broader concept, and it includes many processes. Let's say a man and a woman meet. And even before falling in love occurs, a very, very intense “communication” takes place between them (in quotes because we do not mean communication in the sense in which it is usually understood). As you know, a person has not only consciousness, but also an unconscious. And when two people interact, their unconscious also contacts each other. Some aspects of these contacts are accessible to awareness because they are in the so-called area of ​​the immediate unconscious, others are hidden even from reflection. For example, it is extremely important for a woman to feel (know at a deep level) that the man she chooses is strong, capable of protecting both her and her children (and, accordingly, children from him will be more viable than from someone else), and in order to check whether this is so or not, she can somehow inadvertently (from the point of view of the conscious) or deliberately (at least from the point of view of the unconscious) “prick” a man, insert a hairpin or do something else that suits his needs. situations to find out what he is like when angry. Capable of aggression? Excellent! This means it can protect from many. And the conscious perception of the evoked reaction, by and large, does not mean anything: this “game” is in the hands of the unconscious. And there can be very, very many similar “tests” on both sides. Each of us has many parts of the personality, which in psychoanalysis are called archetypes, and we will also use this term because it is convenient and capacious. And each of these parts of the personality also “looks closely” at a partner (potential or current), like this our consciousness does. We ourselves can say that we are indifferent to a person’s appearance or, for example, financial situation, but inside our psyche there are parts for which these aspects are important. Love in the general sense consists of the work and decisions of all these parts. The phenomenon of transfer is very significant for the origin of love: in the broad sense of the word, it is the transfer of the feelings that we experience for one person to another. In a narrow (and more often used) way, it is the transfer of specifically those feelings that we experience for our parents to someone else. A lot is said and written about the influence of transfer on various kinds of relationships (of course, not only intimate ones), but we will emphasize only one thing: if some mechanism works in our psyche, this means that it is necessary for something. This applies to both individually developed and universal mechanisms. So, since the transfer exists, it is needed. Why? How could a close, trusting, and, again, intimate relationship arise between a man and a woman who were initially strangers to each other, if there were no transfer? Let's say there is a person. I don’t know him at all, or I know very little. And I have no desire to trust him, open up and get close to him - he is a stranger to me... And a completely different matter begins when transfer comes into play. What strong hands he has! And the voice is similar to dad's. And in general, in principle, he is very, very similar to my dad: he is just as businesslike, loves to joke and cooks meat deliciously! And immediately there is an attraction, a willingness to have a frank conversation, a feeling of closeness and some kind of spiritual kinship - everything that allows you to comfortably take the relationship to a new level. In every woman there lives a little girl who loves her dad very much (regardless of the actual circumstances of her childhood and conscious relationship to the father). And this love for her father opens up the opportunity for her to love some other man. Yes, the transfer passes after some time, as well as the state of intense love - but it creates a kind of temporary and emotional “buffer” in order to get closer to the person, get to know him - and for the emerging lovedeveloped and strengthened. The situation is symmetrical in men. Every little boy loves his mother very, very much. And this boy lives inside every man. And when he sees that the woman with whom he communicates is somewhat similar to his mother - maybe she has hair the same color, or she also loves cats, or also strives to feed him tastier food - he easily transfers love for his mother to this woman who looks like her. And this is how trust, intimacy, a feeling of kinship, warmth arise. (We will write about this phenomenon in detail, but a few words need to be said now. Sometimes partners in relationships, more often women, noticing something similar, try to artificially “stretch” the transfer: for a longer time, for a larger number of contexts. In fact, they exploit the image of the mother in the hope of getting some benefits from the transference relationship. And as a rule, all these manipulations end disastrously for the family and for them personally. The phenomenon of transference. - is no exception. It has its own purpose, its own context, and if you try to move it to another context and impose another purpose, it will inevitably turn into something else... For more details, see Chapter 16. “Ahi-fears”, and where they lead: openly about the unpleasant.) And in this “polyhedron of love” a significant part is occupied by the search for an answer to the question: is this person like me or not? Here it makes sense to remember those very archetypes discovered and studied by Carl Gustav Jung... In the psyche of every man there is a female archetype - Anima, and in the psyche of every woman - a male archetype Animus. This is, so to speak, the “inner woman” of a man and the “inner man” of a woman. As we have already written, if something exists in the psyche, it is needed for something. We need such a multitude of archetypes (how many of them are there actually – hundreds, thousands?) because in life there are a great many possible contexts (circumstances, situations). These contexts are very different and require a variety of behavior from us. Strictly speaking, it is provided by our archetypes. Therefore, even within five minutes we can have time to bargain with the seller (show the Merchant-Business archetype), explain to the child why the sky is blue (Teacher archetype), pat him on the head and console him if he fell and hit himself (Mother archetype) - and a lot what else... And the archetypes of Anima and Animus not only help us successfully try on the female and male roles when required, but also help us navigate in choosing a partner. This is natural: we feel best, most comfortable in the company of a person similar to us. Such a person is easier to understand, dissonance of states arises less often with him, etc. Those. the man is unconsciously looking for a woman who is similar to his own Anima (the way the female archetype is represented in him), and the woman is looking for a man who would be like her own “inner man”. Suppose a strong, energetic, domineering man (“warrior man,” so to speak) will feel more comfortable next to a woman who is also strong, fierce, capable of protecting herself and children, a “warrior woman.” A calm, collected intellectual who values ​​order and stability, will try to find a man who is “in tune” with himself - neat, balanced, loving measured rhythms. And if you ask the question again: what is this for? The fact is that certain qualities are given to us and developed by us in the process of life for a reason, but so that we have the opportunity to fulfill a certain mission, task, purpose. The similarity in such qualities allows us to speak about the similarity of missions, about the closeness of missions. And why is it needed, this closeness of missions? And here is the time to introduce another key concept of our book. This concept is a common cause. Family, as you understand, also exists for a reason, but always for something. And the family has two main tasks. The first is the birth and raising of children. And the first (because both are priorities) is the implementation of a common cause. Not only the person as a system has a mission, but also the family as a system -