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ambivalence

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ambivalence (ămbĭv`ələns), coexistence of two opposing drives, desires, feelings, or emotions toward the same person, object, or goal. The ambivalent person may be unaware of either of the opposing wishes. The term was coined in 1911 by Eugen Bleuler Manfred Bleuler, conducted important follow-up studies in the Burghölzi hospital made famous by his father, and summarized these in The Schizophrenic Disorders (1978).

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See E. Bleuler Dementia Praecox (1911, tr. 1950).
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, to designate one of the major symptoms of schizophrenia schizophrenia (skĭt'səfrē`nēə)
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, the others being autism autism (ô`tĭzəm)
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 and disturbances of affect (i.e., emotion) and of association (i.e., thought disorders). Bleuler felt that there were normal instances of ambivalence, such as the feeling, after performing an action, that it would have been better to have done the opposite; but the normal person, unlike the schizophrenic, is not prevented by these opposing impulses from deciding and acting. In Freudian psychoanalysis, ambivalence was described as feelings of love and hate toward the same person. This specific meaning has attained common usage by psychiatrists and psychoanalysts.
ambivalence [am′bi·və·ləns]
(psychology)
The coexistence of contradictory emotions, attitudes, ideas, or desires with respect to a particular person, object, or situation.


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Yet, all ambivalence aside, the book has some finer moments.
Muccino's movies -- ``Remember Me My Love'' and ``The Last Kiss'' (which Zach Braff just remade) -- home in on the ambivalence inherent in love and marriage.
Having challenged the mythology of social ambivalence about law in China, the book then addresses myths about the unitary state and its ambivalence about the uses of law in governance.
 
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