What are you reading, Ms Perović?

One of the questions at the heart of my scientific drive – and extending beyond it – is the issue of sustainability in love and at work. How does one maintain the drive that is at the root of a scientific project? How does one sustain the love for a partner beyond the initial “butterfly” phase? One of today’s brightest voices in the field of emotional and relational intelligence is undoubtedly Esther Perel. The prominent Belgian-American psychotherapist is best known for her work on human relationships. In her book, Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence, she examines a deeper meaning of eroticism as a phenomenon capable of inspiring life and vanquishing the natural fear of death. I believe this spark of vitality can drive our endeavors both at work and outside. However, the lust for life is not a given in the contemporary work life. We tend to search for it in our private lives, with our partners, children, families, where we are safe to go on adventures of play and fantasy.

Esther Perel describes her very personal and intense encounters with joie de vivre. Her parents, both Holocaust survivors, were a unique source of vitality and embodied a powerful sense of “life against all odds”. The book explores a whole range of human relationships with regards to love, marriage, sexuality, etc. Central to the question of maintaining desire is the paradox of domesticity and desire, of the human yearning for both safety and playfulness. Developmental psychology teaches us that what is known as a healthy “attachment style” in children manifests as an ability to go to the very edge of their safety zone and back – for example by comfortably crawling away from parental attachment figures and crawling back to safety when the time is right.

Likewise, in science, we often have to know when to take risks and when to err on the side of caution. Consequently, maintaining a sense of spiritual freedom and vitality can be as hard in the lab as it is in our private lives. This study of how different people, contexts and times require different approaches to the challenges of life (or sexuality or science) put me more in touch with my own truest meaning of play and adventure. My task, our task – it seems – is to find play in work and work in play.

Esther Perel: Mating Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (Hodder & Stoughton)

Tijana Perović, PhD in Gerhardt lab