Article
Community
Mental Health
Romance
4 min read

Forget rapturous romance, friendship is the love that feeds the relationally malnourished

Look beyond the commercialised celebration of Valentine’s Day.

John Wyatt is the author of Transforming Friendship. He also writes on ethical, philosophical and theological challenges caused by advances in medical science and technology.

A hand held out is gentle grasped by a turning person.

It’s Valentine’s Day yet again – the annual commercialised binge of flowers, chocolates, tacky pink cards and heart-shaped balloons. This year US consumers alone will spend an estimated $26bn expressing their yearnings for someone or something. A special person that will make their dreams come true, a magic chemistry that will bring meaning and fulfillment, or maybe just plain old-fashioned lust. Valentine’s Day provides an annual and unavoidable restatement of the message that the royal route to personal fulfillment and relational intimacy is mind-blowing sex and romantic endorphins.  

A time traveller from a previous era would look at these excesses with astonishment. How was it that sexual ecstasy and came to be seen as the route to human fulfilment, meaning and intimacy? For most of our history, sexual attraction and coupling has been regarded as a relatively minor part of life. Important for reproduction and continuation of the species, no doubt, but hardly the meaning of existence.  

There is a pervasive sense of relational deficit, a longing for genuine intimacy that remains unsatisfied. 

Dr Freud, obsessed with the hydraulic metaphors of the age, invents the idea of libido, a powerful but unruly fluid which provides the ultimate motive force for the personality. Sexual repression is essential to civilization but also the source of neurosis and other discontents. For decades Freudian psychology remains a minority interest for psychotherapists and creative artists but with the rise of the sexual liberation movement in the 1960s, the invention of the contraceptive pill and the commercial exploitation of sex for marketing, it has become the unquestionable orthodoxy of the age. The conviction formed that sex in all its forms is good for psychological health, that control and frustration of sexual drives leads inexorably to mental illness. That celibacy is a deeply unrealistic and potentially dangerous state, that the impulse for sexual pleasure lies behind much if not all human motivation, that our very identity is defined by our sexual drives and interests – these seem to be such obvious and scientifically authoritative ideas as to be self-evident and unchallengeable. They are part of the agreed presuppositions of twenty-first century culture, and they are all traceable to Freud. Valentine’s day is the ultimate celebration of libido in all its multifarious forms.  

But for many of us, February 14th is a painful reminder of what we don’t have. Whether unattached but aching to be romantically involved, or trapped in a dysfunctional relationship, the glossy merchandise packing out the supermarket aisles only seems to twist the knife. Surveys have indicated that half of UK adults report feeling lonely, and seven percent of the population experience ‘chronic loneliness’. The popularity of transactional dating apps, and the surprising rise of simulated AI partners, reflect a desperate longing for something, a relationship that will satisfy our deepest yearnings, bring purpose and fulfillment. There is a pervasive sense of relational deficit, a longing for genuine intimacy that remains unsatisfied. 

It is friendship with its genuine concern and caring for the other that must absorb our pain and meet our needs, just as we, in turn, meet the needs of others.    

How can we recover and celebrate an older, deeper and more lasting form of intimacy between human beings? To the writers, sages and philosophers of the past, friendship - covenantal, committed, intimate, self-disclosing - was the highest form of human love.  To Cicero, friendship was the most joyful gift of life and those who deprive life of friendship ‘seem to take the sun out of the universe’. To JC Ryle ‘Friendship halves our troubles and doubles our joys.’   

Our culture’s tendency to read a sexual dimension into all close adult relationships, implies that we have forgotten that non-sexual and yet powerfully intimate, joyful and committed unions can exist between two people. Healthy covenantal friendship, in which our deepest fears, vulnerabilities and longings can be accepted, seen, known, and loved by the other, is inexpressibly beautiful and life-affirming, a form of intimacy which is open to all, unlike marriage or romance. Friendship is the love that our relationally malnourished, lonely society cries out for. Where so many in our society lack biological family or marital ties, it is friendship with its genuine concern and caring for the other that must absorb our pain and meet our needs, just as we, in turn, meet the needs of others.    

Romantic love and sexual attraction have their place in our lives, but they have become twisted out of proportion and made into ultimate goals. Sex was never designed to bear the weight of every human need and desire. In a strange and poignant quirk of the calendar, this year Valentine’s Day coincides with Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, a reminder of mortality and death -ashes to ashes - but also the first day of the great Lenten journey which leads to Easter sacrifice and resurrection. It’s a reminder that ultimate meaning for human beings made out of dust may be found not in libidinous excess but in love and hope that affirm and transcend our mortality.   

Snippet
Care
Comment
Community
Mental Health
2 min read

Who holds the vital ingredient as healthcare shifts from hospital to community?

The trusted anchor institutions that can provide pastoral care and more.

Esther works as a Senior Consultant for the Good Faith Partnership. She sits in the secretariat for the ChurchWorks Commission.

A social prescribing project in full swing.
A social prescribing project in full swing.
Theos.

On 11 November, the Good Faith Partnership, the National Academy of Social Prescribing (NASP) and the Bishop of London convened a roundtable discussion in the House of Lords to call for a collaborative relationship between faith groups and NHS social prescribing providers. 

Faith leaders from the major religions in the UK gathered alongside senior officials such as from the Department for Health and Social Care, NHS England and arm’s length bodies.  

‘There are lots of exciting opportunities with a new government in place,’ said Charlotte Osborn-Forde, CEO of NASP, adding that as part of her desire to see social prescribing available in NHS services beyond GP surgeries ‘there are huge and untapped assets in communities.’  

Marianne Rozario from Theos, the lead researcher on a groundbreaking new report on faith and social prescribing, elaborated, saying that faith groups are trusted anchor institutions in local communities that are well networked, offer resources in the form of buildings and volunteers, and have expertise in pastoral and spiritual care.  

Mark Joannides, Deputy Director for Community Health in the Department of Health and Social Care, added that: ‘Faith groups are going to have to be part of this,’ when referring to the government’s health mission and the three big shifts from hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention.  

The conversation focused on how this integration could take place, particularly through securing shared investment funds for faith groups, co-locating healthcare services into faith buildings, and integrating faith groups into the NHS 10-year healthcare plan. 

A range of ideas were shared by those present including the importance of investing in faith groups to provide palliative care, focusing on reducing health inequalities, and investing in local infrastructure.  

On 30 January, Good Faith Partnership and Theos will publish the first ever report into the role of faith communities in the social prescribing system. This timely report collates research into the role of faith groups in social prescribing and aims to facilitate further discussion on how collaboration between faith groups and the NHS can support the needs of the most vulnerable in our society. Alongside the report, two ‘How To’ guides will be published, providing faith leaders and social prescribing link workers with a step-by-step process for building relationships with one another.  

To hear more about the research recommendations, explore next steps and to access the practical ‘how-to’ guides register for a free hour-long webinar on 30 January using this link: 

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