"Love is a central condition of human

existence. We need it for survival; we seek

it for pleasure; we require it to lend mean-

ing and purpose to ordinary existence;

we suffer its loss with grief and often

despair."

So begins Rediscovering Love, Willard

Gaylin s culminating masterwork and

the most important book on the subject

since Erich Fromm s The Art of Loving.

The author of the bestseller Feelings,

Dr. Gaylin contends that we are close

to creating a loveless world. Orthodox

Freudian psychology has managed to

reduce love to an adjunct of the sexual

drive, while the rise of American individ-

ualism has replaced the ability to love

with a narcissistic appetite to be loved. He

elucidates the social and intellectual roots

of this emotional crisis, and then under-

takes nothing less than a rehabilitation of

love as a central human experience and a

stirring defense of the role of romance and

the imagination in loving.

Dr. Gaylin unapologetieally declares

himself "an optimist and a romantic."

t te wants to elevate the idea of genuine

pleasure above the mere satisfaction of

appetite. He is unashamed in his advocacy

for commitment. And he writes for the

educated lay audience with consummate

ease and literacy, drawing dozens of

telling, touching examples from the great-

est writers, both classic and modern.