Passion runs through and vertebrates our history. This authentically human quality, as defined by the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard in 1843, has always intrigued thinkers, and today it is the object of study by neurobiologists, psychiatrists and sexologists. The term originally had a negative meaning: it comes from the Latin passĭo and refers to the “action of suffering, which is a disturbance or disorderly affect of the mind.” However, today it enjoys great prestige: it is seen as an enviable emotional state, and many consider it the real reason to live.
Louis C. Charland, professor at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, in the departments of Philosophy and Psychiatry and in the School of Health Sciences, explains that “passion is a very popular concept in the history of the West. Many researchers have defined it in different ways, but over time, this concept has been replaced by emotion. Today, the word passion is no longer used in scientific writing, although it is used in popular culture, where it means many different things to different people. “
The philosophers of antiquity already tried to orient themselves in this emotional labyrinth. For Plato, passions are related to pleasure and pain, and there are noble ones – such as love and courage – and low ones. Aristotle does not consider them bad, as long as the intellect dominates them, and he enumerates them: desire, fear, anger, envy, boldness, joy, love, pity, regret, hatred and emulation. In the following centuries, the Stoics criticized them as excesses of sensitivity that distance man from his rational essence. Saint Augustine (354-430), one of the first Christian thinkers, divided them into positive and negative, according to the intention of the subject: if the will is good, so will the passions.
Theories began to change when, already in our time, the study of this feeling passed into the field of science. Professor Charland believes that “there was a gap when the term passion disappeared from psychology and psychiatry, but my team and I are trying to recover it for these disciplines.” For this researcher, passions “are very different from emotions. The former are complex and dynamic affective states that last and evolve over time, since they structure behavior around a fixed idea. They work in the long term, while emotions work in the short term. Furthermore, passion organizes emotions –love, pain, jealousy …– around that idea or subject that arouses it ”.
In Charland’s words, “often a passion is summed up in a simple phrase that the subject may not be aware of: ‘I have to conquer Europe’, ‘I have to alleviate the suffering of the poor’, ‘I have to earn a lot money ‘, etc. For example, Napoleon was ruled by a passion for ambition, while Darwin ruled his life largely by collecting animal species. For other experts, passion becomes what gives meaning to existence. In the opinion of Maryam Varela, PhD in Emotional Intelligence from Bircham University, in the USA, it is “a very intense and energizing feeling that comes from the depths of the soul and arises only when one has found the reason for to live. It fills us with adrenaline and vigor, and everything makes sense. Passionate people do not give importance to what, how or when, but rather to why they do things, and to the emotions that this activity provokes in them ”.
Time also escapes us when we fall in love, a game that starts in just half a second, which takes the brain to unleash a wave of chemicals when it runs into its better half. The data comes from a study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine. In this work, led by Stephanie Ortigue, a professor at Syracuse University in New York, previous research that had investigated the brain’s reaction to love was analyzed. The conclusions were overwhelming: falling in love provokes an addictive response similar to that of cocaine.
When a person is a victim of Cupid’s arrows, the brain areas responsible for releasing euphoric neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, and hormones such as oxytocin, associated with affective bonds, are activated. Ortigue adds that complex cognitive regions responsible for mental representation and bodily self-image are also set in motion . “Love – says this psychologist – is a more complicated process than drug addiction, and it can be said that it has a scientific basis.”
Helen Fisher, an anthropologist, biologist and professor at Rutgers University, in the USA, has dedicated her career to explaining the feeling of love from different perspectives. After decades of research, he distinguishes three stages in love, explainable through the chemistry of the body. In the first, tinged with lust, testosterone predominates, which increases sexual desire, and an adrenaline rush occurs that increases blood pressure, heart rate and sweating. It also increases norepinephrine, which contributes to erotic arousal and improves mood.
In a second phase comes a more elaborate attraction: it is the time of phenylethylamine, a neurotransmitter that generates a chain reaction in the brain and stimulates the secretion of dopamine, another chemical messenger that affects the emotional response and the ability to experience pain or pleasure. It also induces a learning process that transforms desire into something deeper.
During this chemical feast , oxytocin levels also rise. Known as the hormone of love, it takes the reins in the last step, that of the bond and the attachment. This hypothalamic substance, responsible for the birth of affective bonds, is released in women especially during childbirth, breastfeeding and orgasms. In men, it promotes erection and ejaculation. During this stage, more vasopressin – another hormone related to attachment – and serotonin, a neurotransmitter linked to emotional states, also circulate. The foundations have been laid for a stable and lasting relationship.
It is then that many couples perceive that the exciting fieryness that united them is in danger. “There are moments in life when we are more or less passionate. That is common, and responds to multiple reasons; for example, depression can be the antithesis of desire. In couple relationships, passion is important, both sexual and emotional, but it varies according to the stages and circumstances ”, clarifies Francisca Molero, director of the Barcelona Institute of Sexology and the Ibero-American Institute of Sexology.
The important thing, in his opinion, “is to be able to feel that momentum again. To reactivate desire, you have to find reserved moments for the couple and recover the erotic games of the beginning, but it also helps to embark on common activities and projects that excite us ”. And he adds: “If the relationship is not bad and the passion has existed before, it can be rekindled with motivation . Now, it is convenient to distinguish between being passionate and being passionate. A person of passionate nature obtains benefits and a psychological reinforcement of that way of being, which is why he sustains it over time ”.
Is it possible that we get excited again with a person with whom we have lived for years and daily wear and tear? For Dr. Molero, we must dedicate time to sex, and not just in bed. “You have to anticipate the encounter, think about it, indulge in erotic fantasies and memories. The brain is powerful, but so is learning new lovemaking skills . Surprise, play, the desire to experiment and planning are important, but also letting yourself be carried away by the here and now ”. Molero knows that passion can also bring out the worst in ourselves, “when it makes us feel guilty and creates dependency, when it does not allow us to live and develop, when it becomes an omnipresent need”.
