Jeremy Neitzke

What is love, and why do we love? Psychologists over the past 50 years have described it as having positive thoughts and strong feelings towards someone with a deep sense of commitment towards that person. An Anthropologist, Dr. Helena Fisher, thinks love is much more straightforward.

Tim is a writer, and when he learned of her research, he learned that there is a very specific part of the brain that becomes active when people are in love.

“When you think about it sort of makes sense, I wiggle my toes or move my jaw, those movements would trigger a certain part of the brain to activate. So it stands to reason that feeling love or loving someone would cause your brain to fire in a certain region too.” This research lead Tim to question, can this help me get over my ex?

Tim had been in a relationship with the same person since he was 16, spending the better part of a decade with her romantically, knowing her for nearly their whole lives. According to Tim, he considers Amelia to have been his only true relationship, disclosing that she was the only person whom he ever truly loved.

 “Things always felt really good until they weren’t. Sometimes I think it was boredom, and we’d start picking at sore subjects or push each other’s buttons. Then something changed, and things just didn’t feel right.”

Tim and Amelia got caught in a cycle of breaking up and getting back together again, then breaking up and getting back together again until the end of 2017 when Tim decided that he couldn’t handle it anymore, deciding that they would be better off as friends.

“The time apart was really good for us as individuals, I think it gave me a lot more respect for when we were together.”

Tim had reached out in September 2019 to see if they could meet again and catch up.

“This was a big mistake for me, my feelings hadn’t really changed for her but, I could tell that she had done some serious soul-searching and moved on from me. She deserved that but it was an absolute punch to the gut.”

The two parted ways and Tim had gotten word that he would be working from home as Covid just hit the states.

Tim had reached out to Amelia but she decided it would be best if they cut contact entirely.

“She said she needed distance from me, and she could feel herself falling into old habits whenever we reconnected. I needed to move on.”

The problem was that Tim was stuck, he was still hoping that they would be able to get back together and began searching for answers.

“I think I tried just about everything you can do to get over your ex, I put states between us, I did things that were fun for me that she didn’t really like, I traveled once restrictions started to let up, I even got a dog, but, it still hurt. That’s when I started watching TED Talks about relationships.”

Around 3:00 in the morning, Dr.Fishers talk on why people cheat started playing, that’s when he first learned about the brain scans, and he decided that he was going to find a way to fall out of love with Amelia.

“Essentially, what I learned from that TED Talk was that there was a way to take my love and tone it down. The question was where to start and what will my insurance cover?”

The first step was to see if there was a way to trick his brain into thinking differently when she came to mind. The way he imagined this process would be something similar to classical conditioning, where he would be shown a picture of Amelia and then have adverse stimuli introduced to create a negative association.

“The way I understood how this should work is that I would be giving my brain a negative reaction, and that would kind of train it to act a certain way. Parks and Rec kind of inspired me. They did an episode where a guy fell in love with just an awful person and they would spray her perfume and then slap him as hard as they could to make him hate her. In my mind, your brain would make a connection between the picture and the smack so maybe it would dull that feeling of love that I have. Turns out, it’s a little more complicated than that.”

Tim’s search lead him to contact several therapists in the area to discuss possible treatment options. A few of these included neurofeedback, hypnosis, talk therapy, and medication. Eventually, Tim met Dr. Simpson, a therapist based out of Manassas specializing in imago therapy, emotion-focused individual therapy, and Grief Therapy Meaning Reconstruction.

“There were a couple of factors that led me to choose Dr.Simpson as my therapist. The first is that she was able to explain why some of these other therapies wouldn’t serve my overall goal of falling out of love with Amelia. The second reason is Rowan, her therapy dog, who would sit in my lap while we worked out some of the more complex feelings I have.”

According to Tim, the first few meetings were somewhat tense, the fact finding questions were making him uncomfortable and embarrassed. Dr. Simpson had another view of the exchange.

“The first few meetings with any patient looking to move past a feeling like grief or in Tim’s case, love, can be uncomfortable. It’s not my goal to make anyone feel a sense of shame about that emotion but understand what it’s rooted in. Once I have that information, I can start formulating a treatment plan.”

Together the pair worked out a plan that they believed would help Tim’s brain become more aware of familiar patterns that reminded him of his former relationship and be more receptive to romance outside the constructs he’s already created. The pair believed that these two things would be the foundation of how he could fall out of love with Amelia.

The pair agreed to start with twelve separate thirty-minute sessions over the course of four weeks. The first of these sessions was rooted in Imago therapy, which holds the belief that individuals will pick a partner that represents a wound from the past and saw Tim explore his childhood to find a connection to the frustrations that ultimately led to their breakup.

“Generally, Imago therapy is used for couples counseling but I thought Tim could benefit from the personal exploration that it offers. From the background information he volunteered, I felt like there was a pretty potent mixture of frustration and love that he still held. Imago Therapy helps someone identify the source of those feelings so they can mend the relationship and learn to move past those feelings.”

The next few sessions were much of the same, identifying childhood trauma, tying it to instances in his relationship, and learning how to respond should a similar situation happen again. The overall purpose of this was to counteract some of the physiological responses of falling in love.

“Honestly, it was frustrating to keep going through these exercises with Dr. Simpson, I hoped that things would progress faster. I think part of the problem was that I was constantly checking in with myself and searching for these tiny changes. It wasn’t until one of our last sessions where things really started to click.”

The last couple of sessions focused on what Tim wanted for his future. According to Tim, the first few answers didn’t focus on romance or love at all. Rather, he saw himself dedicating more time to advancing his career.

“When Dr. Simpson asked me to think about my future, my brain didn’t instantly go to Amelia and the life I saw us having. I was able to see things that I wanted for myself outside of the old plans that we had, before, the plan was to become a Senior Technical writer for a company and buy a house. Now I live in a 3-bedroom apartment with four people, and I’m working on a novel.”

Once the twelve sessions were over Tim was set to face the world with the tools Dr. Simpson had given with a plan to meet once the new year had started. In March of 2022, Tim headed back to Dr. Simpson’s office to check on his progress.

“It was surreal to go back through those memories with Dr. Simpson again. I think by the law of numbers, she will always have a place in my heart but I don’t have that weight anymore. It’s kind of like when you break your arm. You know that you broke that bone, and you can remember that it hurt, but, there’s no way for you to remember how much pain that really was. When I think back to when I was with Amelia, there’s a pang but, I think that’s normal but, I could see past her, and I knew that there was room to move on.”

Dr. Simpson closed the session by asking Tim what his love life looked like now, is he in a relationship? If so, is he using the techniques he’s learned to make sure he’s falling in love again?

“I am very much single but not because of Amelia. I’ve been on a few dates and it’s been great to meet people who I don’t have this complicated history with. What I’m working on now is presenting a very authentic version of me and making sure I show up to those dates with the expectation to have fun.”

When asked how Tim views love having gone through the work with Dr. Simpson, Tim had this to say.

“I don’t know if I have a better way to describe it other than a feeling of safety. That really hasn’t changed, but I’m just as responsible for that feeling as someone else is.”

Break up’s are difficult, and the students of George Mason had some interesting ideas as to how they’ve moved on from a relationship. One woman told me she bought a record player and listened to her favorite Neko Case album on repeat until someone called her landlord. A young man picked up weightlifting as a way to build his self-esteem. Other suggestions included binge-watching a true-time crime tv series, start smoking, spending time with a sibling, volunteering at an animal shelter, and walking in complete silence for a few hours so your brain can process the loss. Here’s one woman description of what love is and things she’s done to get over a break-up.

What is love:

What I’ve done to get over a break up: