A Second Opinion

        Robert Epstein - The Love Project

 

Background:
   On February 9, 2003 Wayne and Tamara published a brief article about "The Love Project" of Robert Epstein. Epstein, then editor-in-chief of Psychology Today magazine, had proposed entering a "love contract" with a woman to show that a couple could deliberately create a love relationship.

   Wayne and Tamara thought this was the most ill-advised project / money-making scheme they had ever heard of. At the time of the Mitchell's article, the avalanche of media buzz Robert had created was in its eighth month. ( After only two months, Robert claimed he had already done about a hundred print and radio interviews.)

   Now, on the eve of the Valentine's Day signing of a "love contract," Robert Epstein's partner balked. She read Wayne and Tamara's article and had second thoughts.

   Robert couldn't backpedal fast enough. He dashed off an ill-considered email to the Mitchells, without paragraph spacing, in which he did a total flip-flop.

   To Wayne and Tamara, he denied what had been printed in newspapers around the world in direct quotes from his own mouth. The Love Project suddenly went from media sensation to "my modest love experiment ."

   In the end Wayne and Tamara heard from many people about the love contract, including an attractive blonde who declined Robert's overtures three times--once only days before Gabriela Castillo met him and finally accepted.

(These days Robert Epstein offers advice on "Psyched!"
a radio program on Sirius Satellite Radio.)

Original Article Published - February 9, 2003:
   In June 2002 the editor of Psychology Today, Robert Epstein, told his readers he was embarking on a bold experiment. Through family, friends and small ads he would find a co-author to help write a book called The Love You Make: How We Learned to Love Each Other, and How You Can Too.

   Robert Epstein said he and his co-author would read extensively about love, go to counseling together, and learn "to fall deeply in love." He already had a top literary agent to place the book, he announced, and before long he had an offer from TV networks to create a reality series based on the same premise.

   The problem according to Epstein is that we are saturated by fairy tales from childhood and Hollywood about finding The One. He proposed to demonstrate that we can learn to fall in love. In conducting this personal experiment, he insisted, "I am standing on the shoulders of giants" in psychology.

   The response to Robert's editorial was overwhelming. Over a thousand women volunteered and 15 made the cut. But he rejected them all.

   On Christmas Day 2002 Robert was seated on an airliner next to Gabriela Castillo, a trim blond who speaks five languages. Robert was smitten. He told Gabriela of his book idea, and she wasn't buying.

   In the best tradition of "Some Enchanted Evening" and finding The One, he promised he would relinquish his project to pursue her. And she acquiesced. Incredibly he is still going through with his plans even though his behavior undercuts the basic premise. The two planned on signing a "love contract" on February 14, 2003 (Valentine's Day).

"It's about publicity, adventure, getting attention. None of it has to do with finding love."
          --Herb Goldberg, clinical psychologist
("Pitching Woo and a Book Concept" LA Times July 3, 2002)

 

   When Robert said he was standing on the shoulders of giants, he must have been thinking about P.T. Barnum, boxing promoter Don King, and televangelist Jim Bakker.

   Aside from demonstrating that he cannot accurately report his own behavior, what do we know about Robert Epstein? There's the obvious. He's deeply confused. Despite a PhD in psychology from Harvard, he has "two exes who hate me."

   But what is not obvious to him is that his premise about counseling and learning to love has been a dominant theme of American psychology since the end of the Second World War. In one form or another it has been pushed by the National Council on Family Relations (founded 1938) and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (founded 1942).

   It is the premise of "Can This Marriage Be Saved," a feature running continuously in the Ladies Home Journal since 1948. In fact any survey of women's magazines over the last half century will reveal hundreds of in-house and guest psychologists promoting this same tired idea decade after decade.

   Clifford Adams, the Penn State PhD who wrote for the LHJ for many years, advised readers in January 1950 to "turn to your clergyman, a marriage counselor or clinical psychologist--not to relatives or friends." In February 1960 the LJH reported the sad tale of Bill and Jean. "They postponed counsel until it was too late."

   The reality is this. The desire for the one comes from within us, and that is why the overlays from PhDs don't work. We can't talk ourselves out of what is deeply within our own consciousness. Though there are several hundred thousand people doing some form of couple's therapy in the US, the idea won't die because it is within us.

   To the extent that the divorce rate in the US has stabilized, it is due to two main factors. Men and women are on average marrying five years later than they used to, and divorced people are less likely to remarry than formerly.

   Somewhere in this universe or beyond, P.T. Barnum is thinking of Robert Epstein and smiling.
 

Robert Epstein's unsolicited e-mail to the Mitchells is printed here.

 

SOURCES:

• USA TODAY, June 19, 2002; August 22, 2002; January 21, 2003. Byline: Karen S. Peterson.

• Psychology Today, June 2, 2002; October 2, 2002; Nov/Dec 2002. Byline: Robert Epstein.

• Psychology Today, "The Love Project," January 21, 2003. Byline: PT Staff.

"Because of my academic background, the staff counts on me to determine whether a piece is scientifically valid, authoritative and has something new in it. That's what we aim for," says Epstein, the first non-career journalist in 33 years to serve as editor-in-chief.  (Psychology Today Press Release - PR Newswire, June 29, 2001.)