Love Psychology:
The Site of Dr. Edward Hoffman and Dr. Marcella Bakur Weiner















Our Philosophy of Romantic Love

We believe in love. As old as humanity, it is a search for intimacy. As the Bible relates poetically, God saw that Adam was alone and needed a mate. And so, Adam and Eve were joined from one divine body, for Eve was fashioned from Adam’s side--beneath his heart—-thereby creating for Adam the “partner that fits,” (Genesis 2:2l-24).

Love is a basic human need. Living without it is akin to starving. The poetry of love itself first appeared in Egypt more than three thousand years ago. In these writings, love was expressed as an inner experience, symbolized by the human heart.

In matters of romantic love, what does our heart feel? Longing. For whom? For the “best fit” partner: our soulmate. With this special person, our passion climbs to dizzying heights, pushing past our pre-conceived notions of ourselves--so that we are both most outside ourselves while at the same time, paradoxically, most inside.

Why, then, do so many couples and individuals feel unhappy, and unfulfilled, their longings buried until they decay? As busy practicing psychologists, we searched for the answer. And then it came to us--with the lightning-flash of insight following years of germinating: A new model had to be birthed. The people we had been helping in our combined decades of clinical practice had read the popular self-help books, listened to the tapes, even sought the most qualified professionals. Yet the longing remained. The sore would not heal.

Our new model talked to that longing, whose fulfillment lies in compatibility. That was the key given to Adam. This is what was needed. And so, we devised a model based on twelve personality traits affecting romantic love. Looking at our model, you can decide which traits are “most yours”-– were always there--and then choose a partner with similar traits, for contrary to that silly notion, opposites do not attract for long. Rather, like seeks like.

In practical terms, who is your soulmate? That person who most matches you on the Big 12 traits—-fully on the three you deem most essential, most representative of your core self, and then at least six of the nine others.

And so, we believe in love. We have seen its raptures in others and experienced it in our own lives. A Paradise revisited, it is to be lived. How better said than in the Biblical Song of Songs (4:l0-ll):

How much better is your love than wine,
And the fragrance of your oils than any spice!
Your lips distil nectar, my beloved;
Honey and milk are under your tongue.

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Copyright © 2005 Dr. Edward Hoffman and Dr. Marcella Bakur Weiner. All Rights Reserved.