The art of loving

Based on the ways of talking about love, psychoanalyst Christian Dunker presents in The Art of Love the history, nuances and current challenges of the experience of love.

Love is the feeling that defines and shapes human beings; sometimes understood as martyrdom, something to be avoided at all costs, other times as the solution to all problems. Love moves, builds, and destroys barriers. It is part of the journey of self-understanding and self-discovery that everyone experiences throughout life.

Throughout the book, Dunker presents the elements that make up the anatomy and grammar of love, unraveling the nuances of human affections, emotions, and feelings and highlighting the challenges of experiencing love in 21st-century society. He suggests that discovering how to understand and control desires requires a deep understanding of oneself and an understanding of what represents the collective construction of what it means to love.

Based on the course he taught at Casa do Saber in 2021, *The Art of Loving* argues that love is something that happens between words, assuming that listening is a kind of elementary condition for all possible love. Furthermore, it discusses what this listening is and how it is a kind of practice, learned, cultivated, and developed, as an introductory phase to practicing the true art of loving.