Romantic Love, Sexual Intimacy, and Logic-Based Therapy

Logic-Based Therapy (LBT) is a method of philosophical counseling and psychotherapy based on Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) that uses logic, philosophy, and a network of “guiding virtues” to treat behavioral and emotional dysfunctions. This paper attempts to show how this virtue-oriented approach to psychotherapy can be potentially useful in counseling couples who may have sexual performance issues or other broader relational issues and seek to build healthy sexual, romantic relationships. As argued here, this is because such love is characterized by deep interpersonal commitment, compassionate caring, and security, which are strongly supported by LBT’s guiding virtues such as empathy, authenticity, self/other respect, courage, and metaphysical security. Beginning with a conceptual analysis of romantic love as a virtue-oriented construct, this paper introduces key aspects of LBT, as distinct from standard REBT, and presents a case study of a couple in a sexless relationship where one partner has an anger-control problem. Through the latter case study, the paper attempts to illustrate how 6 commonplace obstructions to romantic love (targeted by LBT) can potentially be successfully treated by applying LBT’s system of matching virtues.