Understanding Human Bonds: From Love to Resentment
Positive Bonds
Some examples of positive bonds include friendship, trust, confidence, brotherhood, love, respect, appreciation, affection, esteem, confidentiality, loyalty, admiration, passion, love of a mother, gratitude, freedom, and infatuation.
Negative Bonds
Some examples of negative bonds include anger, hate, intimacy, fidelity, rejection, dislike, distrust, envy, jealousy, and nostalgia.
Types of Bonds
Friendship
Friendship is a complex bond that requires love, trust, support, and respect.
Resentment
Resentment is a feeling of hatred. It hurts us more to harbor resentment than it does the other person. Resentment is a bond in which we identify with someone experiencing a bad situation and attribute our feelings to their experience. We may consider the other person inferior or feel guilty for their pain. Resentment can stem from anger or emotional pain and generates distrust.
Trust
Trust is a bond between two people who are considered loyal. To trust someone, you must know their limitations.
Hate
Hate is a feeling of intense dislike that can lead to a desire for harm to come to the person who is hated.
Confidence
Confidence is the feeling of being able to face challenges because we trust in ourselves or in someone else.
Fraternity
Fraternity is the love between brothers. It involves support, respect, and a strong bond of union.
Intimacy
Intimacy requires trust, security, and respect.
Loyalty
Loyalty is being faithful to someone or something. It involves being trustworthy and keeping confidences. A faithful person is trustworthy.
Attachment
Attachment is the quality of many bonds that connects us to another person or group. It can be positive or negative and encompasses all the elements of love.
Affection
Affection is a feeling of respect and care for another person. It involves wanting the best for them, sharing in their joys and sorrows, and desiring their company. In psychology, affection and love are often synonymous.
Love
Love is a complex and healthy set of feelings. It often involves idealizing the other person, seeing only their positive qualities, and turning negatives into positives.
Respect
Respect involves accepting and tolerating another person’s decisions and thoughts, accepting them for who they are.
Appreciation
Appreciation is valuing a person for who they are, as opposed to admiration, which is based on what they do.
Esteem
Esteem is feeling good about yourself and others. It can be affected by negative experiences, such as identifying with someone going through a difficult time and feeling inferior or guilty as a result.
Tenderness
Tenderness is a gentle and loving feeling that motivates positive or negative actions. It is characterized by a lack of aggression and positive qualities such as transparency and innocence. Tenderness is a fleeting bond.
Rejection
Rejection is a form of hate that does not involve a desire for harm but rather a desire for distance.
Anger
Anger is a feeling of intense displeasure that can lead to a desire to avoid contact with the person who is the target of the anger.
Confidentiality
Confidentiality is telling someone something private with the trust that they will not reveal it. Professional confidentiality refers to the ethical obligation of professionals, such as therapists, to keep client information confidential.
Mistrust
Mistrust can arise in relationships where there has been disloyalty. It can also be felt without concrete evidence, based on subtle cues such as glances or communication patterns. Observing someone’s behavior can lead to feelings of trust or distrust.
Envy
Envy is a harmful emotion that belongs to the hate group. It arises when we desire what someone else has and feel bitterness as a result.
Admiration
Admiration is a feeling of respect and approval for someone or something. It is important to assess the person or thing we admire to ensure our admiration is well-placed.
Passion
Passion is an intense feeling that can override reason. While passion can be positive, it can also cloud judgment. Sexual passion is a specific type of passion.
Motherly Love
Motherly love is the affection and need to protect that a mother feels for her child. It is characterized by love, illusion, attachment, dependence, and security. Motherly love is not sexual but rather an intense form of affection.
Gratitude
Gratitude is a feeling of thankfulness and appreciation.
Jealousy
Jealousy is a possessive feeling that arises from the fear of losing someone we love. It often involves the belief that a third party will take away the person we are afraid of losing. Jealousy, like envy, is harmful and belongs to the hate group.
Idolatry
Idolatry is the excessive admiration for someone or something.
Freedom
Freedom is the ability to make choices without being limited by guilt or fear, while respecting the freedom of others. It is influenced by factors such as laws, culture, religion, and peer pressure.
Nostalgia
Nostalgia is a longing for someone or something from the past. It often arises from a strong attachment to the person or thing that is missed.
Infatuation
Infatuation is an intense but short-lived passion for someone. It is characterized by a focus on the positive qualities of the other person and a lack of objectivity.
Platonic Love
Platonic love is a deep and non-sexual love between two people.
Impossible Love
Impossible love is a love that is perceived as unattainable due to subjective factors.