Tough love
Tough love is the act of treating a person sternly or harshly with the intent to help them in the long run. People exhibit and act upon tough love when attempting to address someone else’s undesirable behaviour. Tough love can be used in many scenarios such as when parenting, teaching, rehabilitating, self-improving or simply when making a decision. Tough love is usually seen as positive due to its encouragement of growth, boundaries, resilience and independence.
For other uses, see Tough love (disambiguation).
The phrase "tough love" itself is believed to have originated with Bill Milliken's book of the same title[a] in 1968.[1][2][3][4][b] Bill Milliken described tough love through the expression, "I don't care how this makes you feel toward me. You may hate my guts, but I love you, and I am doing this because I love you."[5][1] Milliken aimed to teach parents how to support and guide problematic teens.
The American Psychological Association describes tough love as the ‘fostering of an individual’s well-being by requiring them to act responsibly to seek professional assistance for their behaviours’.[6] Others such as Tim Hawkes has described tough love as putting "principles before popularity" and allowing loved ones to learn through failure.[7]
Milliken strongly emphasizes that a relationship of care and love is a prerequisite of tough love, and that it requires that caregivers communicate clearly their love to the subject.[1] In relation to addiction, Maia Szalavitz believes, based on her own experience, that this may be difficult, since some people experiencing addiction consider themselves unworthy of love and find it difficult to believe others love them.[8][1]
In most uses, there must be some actual love or feeling of affection behind the harsh or stern treatment to be defined as tough love. For example, genuinely concerned parents refusing to support their drug-addicted child financially until he or she enters drug rehabilitation would be said to be practicing tough love.[9][10] Other examples of tough love include establishing clear boundaries, refusing to enable destructive behaviour, providing honest feedback, allowing natural consequences and failure, encouraging independence and interventions, holding accountability, and lacking empathy.
Theoretical Framework[edit]
An ultimate, evolutionary explanation of tough love would state that tough love helps people adapt to challenging environments and helps them to better compete for resources due to an increase of independence. This is part of the parental investment theory that states parents want to maximise long-term wellbeing and success of their offspring, potentially through tough love.[11]
From a humanistic approach, unconditional positive regard and empathy is key to self-actualising. In tough love, positive regard is conditional to a person's changed behaviour, therefore humanists may not fully agree with tough love. To support humanist's beliefs, it was found that greater parental conditional regard was significantly associated with contingent self-esteem and increased levels of depressive symptoms.[12]
Attachment theory and developmental psychology would emphasise the necessity for love and nurture during early childhood for emotional security and well-being in adulthood.[13] A study done on attachment styles and parenting styles found a positive correlation between a secure attachment and an authoritative style.[14]
