Concept
Ambivalence
Related concepts (5)
Love and hate (psychoanalysis)
Love and hate as co-existing forces have been thoroughly explored within the literature of psychoanalysis, building on awareness of their co-existence in Western culture reaching back to the “odi et amo” of Catullus, and Plato's Symposium. Ambivalence was the term borrowed by Sigmund Freud to indicate the simultaneous presence of love and hate towards the same object. While the roots of ambivalence can be traced back to breast-feeding in the oral stage, it was re-inforced during toilet-training as well.
Cognitive dissonance
In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information and the mental toll of it. Relevant items of information include a person's actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environment. Cognitive dissonance is typically experienced as psychological stress when persons participate in an action that goes against one or more of those things. According to this theory, when two actions or ideas are not psychologically consistent with each other, people do all in their power to change them until they become consistent.
Splitting (psychology)
Splitting (also called black-and-white thinking, thinking in extremes or all-or-nothing thinking) is the failure in a person's thinking to bring together the dichotomy of both perceived positive and negative qualities of something into a cohesive, realistic whole. It is a common defense mechanism wherein the individual tends to think in extremes (e.g., an individual's actions and motivations are all good or all bad with no middle ground). This kind of dichotomous interpretation is contrasted by an acknowledgement of certain nuances known as "shades of gray".
Love–hate relationship
A love–hate relationship is an interpersonal relationship involving simultaneous or alternating emotions of love and hate—something particularly common when emotions are intense. The term is used frequently in psychology, popular writing and journalism. It can be applied to relationships with inanimate objects, or even concepts, as well as those of a romantic nature or between siblings and parents/children.
Madonna–whore complex
In psychoanalytic literature, a Madonna–whore complex, also called a Madonna–mistress complex, is the inability to maintain sexual arousal within a committed, loving relationship. First identified by Sigmund Freud, under the rubric of psychic impotence, this psychological complex is said to develop in men who see women as either saintly Madonnas or debased prostitutes. Men with this behavioral complex desire a sexual partner who has been degraded (the whore) while they cannot desire the respected partner (the Madonna).