Scholarliness is a combination of the skill of Curiosity with the trait of intelligence. Curiosity, you may remember, is largely composed of the core psychological skill of Observing Ego, paired with an educated eye, full of "left brain" ability for detail, history, and organization. The skill of curiosity is universally useful, no matter what one's intelligence level is, but in the absence of the latter, a curious person may have [Read more...] about Scholarliness

A form of positive emotional energy conceived of by Romantic Dynamics, as existing in the Mammalian Brain, where the emotions reside in the mind. It has several synonyms in the form of "happiness," "friendship," and is the antithesis and antidote to stress, resisting and dispelling stress in equal degrees. It is a form of chemical energy in its simplest state, and as such, is subject to the laws of thermodynamics [Read more...] about Self-esteem

Service is defined in the dictionary as "supplying or delivery," or "a system supplying a public need such as transport, communications, or utilities such as electricity and water." The nature of this term is seen as being of appeal as a trait in a partner which one needs if they are more of a thinker and private person, but enjoy access to people and experiences other than their more comfortable, [Read more...] about Service

 Shame is a Feeling of Being Less That Alive, Loss of Vitality, Masculinity or Femininity, and Feeling a "Deadened"

There are so many things that cause Shame is. However, it is a highly useful word about our behavior for some specific reasons. For ease of understanding, Shame is the opposite of Passion, and a depletion of it, the depletion of Masculinity or Femininity and therefore the negation of one's sense [Read more...] about Shame

Intuition, or shrewdness, is something that guides our decisions in terms of what the likely effect of choosing a particular environment to operate within will have on US. And whether the specific decisions in that environment are likely to have the social surrounds treat us back kindly or beneficially for us to reach our goals. It is a kind of "shrewdness"" about knowing people and environments that we start out [Read more...] about Shrewdness

Being overly simplistic is a character "vice of excess" stemming from what would otherwise be a character virtue in the form of elegance. It is intellectually narcissistic, which is to say that it contains either the intellectual narcissism of ignorance or prejudice. One may be ignorant of the maturity level of the audience for an elegant idea, underestimating their sophistication, and insulting them in a way that seems "patronizing." Or may they [Read more...] about Simplistic

The Sirens were dangerous creatures, who lured nearby sailors with their enchanting music and voices to shipwreck on the rocky coast of their island. And so the Siren Instinct in women is the knowledge and use of the power that women have over men through their seductiveness, to obtain advantage in life, career, and romance. In the early steps of romance and sexual attraction, one could envision this instinct as [Read more...] about Siren Instinct

The Skills of Commitment are a set of four behaviors, or skills that a person seeking to establish a stable, long-term relationship or romance needs to cultivate. They will be immediately obvious to any person who sees them described, but will soon come to realize that they incorporate many of the conscious working parts of mature character and one's virtues. They are impaired in developing for those with too much [Read more...] about Skills of Commitment

A simple system of looking at personality styles as growing out of one's innate temperament, and of which there are only four types: Kings or Queens, Warriors, Magicians, or Lovers. These are based on the three fundamental aspects of behavior and psychological function: the emotions, the intellect, and our maturity of decision-making.

The first two - emotional style and intellectual style - form two axes which cross, showing all possible [Read more...] about Social Personality System

This is the unconscious process of taking negative feelings or instincts originally directed towards others, but which are in violation of one’s morals or character - for example, “hating” a dying grandfather - and redirecting them at oneself: pain, illness, and anxiety. It is exemplified by sayings such as, “I make myself sick.”

Somatization highlights the concept of the reptilian brain’s relation to control of the body, in that, if [Read more...] about Somatization

It is turning people against each other, with the good and bad in people split off and unintegrated, then projected onto someone else. The person sees “all-good” and “all-bad” in others, with no room for ambiguity and ambivalence.

Films depicting a character with Borderline Personality Disorder, such as Wicker Park, and Rose Byrne’s character who purposely causes a rift between Josh Hartnett’s Matt character and Diane Kruger’s Lisa is [Read more...] about Splitting

Stagnation is an deficit of adaptation to the world around us, and adaptation is a major gift of the virtue of Philosophy. And so Stagnation is the deficit of Philosophy. A person who is "a lump on the couch" or on the more positive, "in a rut" in terms of how they approach goals. It's hard to get them to pursue their own goals, let alone concoct JOINT life's goals. [Read more...] about Stagnation

Romance has to start somewhere. There is an encounter between two people, and something causes them to take notice of each other. In times past, people said, "Boy Meets Girl" as a description of the beginning of a romantic novel or film. Perhaps today, it should be called, "Girl Meets Boy." Whatever we call this first scene of the first act of the play of romance, it most certainly is [Read more...] about Step 1

Where Step 1 of Courtship was about getting each other's attention, Step 2 is about having decided that a particular individual is of interest, preferred above other candidates, to want to get to know them more.

In Step 2 of Courtship, it is time for the man and woman to "let each other know that they are liked and preferred." This is not to be done verbally, at least outright, [Read more...] about Step 2

If all three steps of Sexual Attraction are geared toward exclusively amplifying two peoples' masculinity and femininity in a way exclusive to each other, then how is it that we are to prepare to move on to the deeper parts of the relationship where sexuality is less in the foreground?

After all, many a man and woman have been "flirtatious," but not all that serious about more exclusive and committed [Read more...] about Step 3

For Step 4, Finding Value in Each Other, the couple already does have a physical attraction caused by the polarity of their masculinity and femininity, however, that is a different process in the mind than friendship. And so we explore the basic principles that compose friendship and where we stand on them.

We have just left Step 3 of Courtship, the final step in the very first phase of human [Read more...] about Step 4

For Step 5, "Finding Stress in Each Other," we learn that there is an opposite to Self-esteem, called Stress, which comes form the environment or from each other. It is negative emotion, and takes the form of Hurt or Loss.

We entered the second phase of courtship, Emotional Attraction, in Step 4, where we knew that desire between us was secure, but it became time to go on several dates, [Read more...] about Step 5

The higher brain is the most conscious set of software in romance, and the intellectual attraction phase is most dependent on first, one's personal growth toward character maturity and virtue (Who I am), and then, on joining the best of one's virtues as a partner with complementary virtues that one may lack, constitutionally, or by way of having identified with the particular same-sex parent that one happened to be given [Read more...] about Step 7

At this step, both partners have experienced desire, Sexual Attraction, dated, formed a friendship, been through some difficult stresses and the emotions they cause, in the Emotional Attraction Phase, and hopefully found that they have compatible personality styles on the Social Personality System. They are "best friends" or "soulmates."

They have even gone so far as to work on their own character maturity and virtue, to ready [Read more...] about Step 8

The step by step process of mastering romantic skills and garnering needed psychological resources, in the course of finding a mate, through sexual attraction, emotional attraction, and intellectual attraction that occur in the reptilian, mammalian and higher brains of the mind, respectively.

The Three Phases of Courtship above can be attributed to the functions of the Reptilian Brain, the Mammalian Brain and the Higher Brain, respectively. There are three steps [Read more...] about Steps of Courtship

Where self-esteem is composed of positive emotional energy, or happiness, and is composed of the two types of self-esteem, called, "well-being" and "confidence," stress is the negative version of this.

Stress, then, is also composed of emotional or chemical energy, and yet is a negative form of it. Just like self-esteem, its opposite, stress can be in the form of either "hurt" or "loss" or both. The former feels like [Read more...] about Stress

Sublimation we have covered by example. It is a high skill and trait in which one properly transforms the passionate instincts, through the emotions, into the conscious, higher brained actions of assertiveness and courage toward specific goals.

It is an amazing feature of us as a defense mechanism.  It may be the very essence of the three areas of the mind working in mature and constructive synchrony - being “in [Read more...] about Sublimation

Suffering has been used in a general way by people to denote an experience of negative emotion. However, in Romantic Dynamics, it is specific to an immature flaw of one's personal boundary, called a "boundary hole."

These "holes" are the "buttons" that people are said to push in us. They are the places where we are said to "have issues" or to be "oversensitive," or where people "get under [Read more...] about Suffering

Suppression gives us the conscious decision to delay dealing with our emotions or destructive things in our lives,  so that we may deal with the present things we need to get done to survive, to maintain stability, and to rework our strategy at life’s goals as a successful couple. It is reminiscent of the 1990s action films where the main character would often say, “I ain’t got time to bleed.” [Read more...] about Suppression