Problems With Intimacy? Retrain Your Brain

YourTango: If someone doesn't have a healthy oxytocin response, can anything help? Therapy? Nutrition?

SK: Therapy has been shown to actually change the structure of the brain. It can retrain the oxytocin response.

YourTango: What about oxytocin in everyday life? If we don't have a partner right now, or we have to be away from family, are there things we can do to boost or cultivate our oxytocin response?

SK: You can join a group, nurture a pet, participate actively in your friendships. If we see love as the oxytocin reponse, we realize that it starts from inside us. Women, tend to think "If I could just find the right person, I would fall in love." But if a woman doesn't have a strong or healthy oxytocin response, all the nice people in the world won't be able to make her fall in love with them.

YourTango: How does oxytocin make it difficult to tell the difference between romance and committed love?

SK: Part of the problem is that we have muddy definitions of love. That feeling after sex of "Oh I love him, he’s the one," that's oxytocin, not love. But people mistake the excitement of romance for committed love. When romance dies, we think "Oh I don't love you any more." Our culture doesn't privilege the steady, non-fizzy kind of love. Media is all about romance. I agree with Helen Fisher on that point.

YourTango: Is oxytocin also secreted by men?

SK: Yes, it's just as important to men as it is to women, but testosterone seems to mute the effects of oxytocin. Vasopressin, which is related to oxytocin, is also important because it stimulates certain protective behaviors in men. Vasopressin is enhanced by testosterone, and estrogen enhances the bonding effects of oxytocin. In relationships, a potential problem can be that women expect men to bond the way they bond.