Affective ambivalence: love and hate at the same time.

What is effective ambivalence?

Affective ambivalence involves experiencing opposite feelings towards the same object. Freud spoke of ambivalence when referring, fundamentally, to the love-hate towards a significant figure as is the case with parental figures. Certainly, there are both loving and aggressive impulses toward parents. When this contradiction becomes unbearable, one tends to repress oneself.

Adolescence is the vital stage where this ambivalence becomes more evident. Towards the parents and towards other figures and situations. At this stage, he goes through emotional crises frequently and this ambivalence usually generates anguish and confusion.

Ambivalence is what generates tension. Hate and love are directed to the same place and, therefore, are experienced as irreconcilable.

The basic definition of ambivalence implies the possibility that something has two different or opposite values. Taken to the affective plane we can think of it in a similar way, these two values ​​are directed towards the same object simultaneously, that is, coexisting. The contradiction generated by this dual situation is what usually leads to repressing one of those values, in order to avoid tension.

According to Freud, the repressed motion takes on disproportionate dimensions, it expands in the shadows. Thus, according to his thought, those who externally show great cordiality, concern for the care of the other, irreproachable love, deep down conceal a very strong aggressive impulse. Those who are thus contained can experience very intense aggressive outbursts.

Bleuler is the one who originally defined affective ambivalence by emphasizing this simultaneous presence of opposite feelings, generating sensations of attraction and repulsion at the same time.

Ambivalence is linked to uncertainty, ambiguity, the conflict between feelings directed towards the same person or object. It is difficult to tolerate ambivalence. The conscience tends to want to choose in the dichotomies to avoid that tension, that pulls that represents the contradiction. That is why effective ambivalence generates, in many cases, so much discomfort.

What relationship could we find between ambivalence and idealization? Idealization implies, to a certain extent, the repression of aggressiveness in order to exalt loving emotions. If idealization is put into play, it is because being aggressive towards that object becomes unbearable, it must be made invisible at any cost. And this is how all those characteristics that can awaken these impulses are suppressed to a greater or lesser extent. The figure then becomes irreproachable, a repository exclusively of admiration, love, and respect.

Having said all this, we can summarize that the human being experiences complex emotions, sometimes, as in this case, confused, chaotic. A duality is manifested that cannot be defined for one side or the other exclusively. Ambivalence is part of our emotional world and manifests itself more frequently at certain vital moments or significant junctures.

Moments of crisis usually generate affective ambivalence: adolescence is the stage of manifestation par excellence, but it also usually manifests itself in the puerperium, and in stressful or new moments that the person is going through.

Knowing about the emotions and the concepts that name what we can experience throughout life, allows us to better understand what happens to us and enables us to work on the aspects that are necessary.

 

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