RENO, NV (June 28, 2003): "LOVE" ?what a concept!  It�s that four-letter word that all people desire, but can�t quite be defined or measured � or can it?

An elite panel of experts will assemble in Reno this month to explore the question of whether love can be designed.  Robert Epstein, former Editor-in-Chief of Psychology Today magazine and guinea pig of his own experiment, together with advisors John Gray, Howard Markman, Pat Love, and Jan Levine, will consider whether people can deliberately learn to fall in love for a lifetime.

Epstein�s experiment was conceived out of his own frustration with the vexing myth of Happily Ever After -- a Hollywood dream that has let him down twice before.  Last February 2002, he wrote a highly publicized and controversial Editorial in which he invited a woman to join him in an experiment designed to test the hypothesis that two people can intentionally learn to love one another.  He proposed that they would sign a "Love Contract" and thereby commit to dating each other exclusively for a given period of time, during which they would educate themselves about love through a series of written and experiential exercises.

Is this pure heresy, or is it an idea that can revolutionize our current understanding of how love works?

  Two thousand conference participants, most of them professionals in the field of relationship education, will join the discussion and tackle this controversial subject at the Smart Marriages interactive plenary on Saturday night, June 28.  While this is a conference that is dedicated to helping couples learn effective relationship skills, most participants believe that love is a spontaneous act that cannot be tampered with.  Panelists Jan Levine and Howard Markman agree that "there indeed may be a science to staying in love, but that only works if a person has already fallen in love� Love cannot be willed or designed."   According to relationship expert John Gottman, falling in love "is a kind of surrender � whose presence or absence we can easily measure but cannot contrive any more than we can contrive a genuine laugh or an orgasm."

Western Society is in love with love: with its capricious, magical nature and with its unmatched power to overcome adversity and heal all wounds.  "Love will show us the way"; "Love conquers all"; sacrifice anything "in the name of love"�.   These romantic credos define cultural expectations at such an unreachable level that 50% of marriages fail to sustain the dream.  Perhaps it is this blind devotion to love that causes marriages to self-destruct and why arranged marriages have a much higher success rate.

Statistics aside, no one would dare consider giving up on romantic love as the bedrock of lasting and intimate relationships.  Most would agree that love is necessary but not sufficient to sustaining satisfying long-term relationships.  But the question that has plagued this group of professionals remains: if love is the essential ingredient of all intimate relationships, then why
does it so readily dissolve?  The answer, it is generally believed, is because couples eventually
neglect or abuse it; because love is not adequately nurtured and protected once it is established.  Perhaps, however, the problem lies not in the faulty maintenance of love, but rather in the pure
serendipity of it all. That is, perhaps the problems that later develop in relationships originate at conception: with love�s capricious nature, as it is developing in perhaps unhealthy ways.

Western Society may well be in love with love, but just as certainly it is a culture based on science and industry; on things that can be measured in a test tube or manufactured in a factory.  Western society typically distrusts any phenomena based on providence or chance alone.  It is therefore surprising that society�s very livelihood is placed solely in the hands of luck.  The institutions of marriage and family are far too vital to economic and social well-being to be based on magic alone.  Maybe it�s time to take love out of the realm of the foolish and crazy and hand it over to a cooler calculus ?one that will literally examine the �method behind the madness.�

Programs now exist all over the country to repair relationships after they break down, that teach engaged couples prevention and enhancement skills, and that even teach high school students how to approach relationships more intelligently.  However, there are no programs that "start at the very beginning" of a relationship --during courtship and dating.  There are no programs that apply the tools to a relationship at its inception, and that help couples learn from the outset how to fall in love for keeps.  Unromantic though it may sound, perhaps this is an idea whose time has come.

The question of whether love can be designed most certainly challenges our culture�s conventional wisdom and prevailing romantic notions about love, however no scientific gain has ever be made by thinking solely inside the box.

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Presenter Backgrounds

Robert Epstein, PhD, Contributing Editor and former Editor-in-Chief of Psychology Today magazine, Research Professor at the California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant International University, and founder and Director Emeritus of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies, earned his doctorate at Harvard and has published 11 books and more than 80 articles.  Although most of his research has focused on creativity, he has also done work in the areas of adolescence, artificial intelligence, and stress anagement. His most recent books are The Big Book of Motivation Games, The Big Book of Stress-Relief Games, and The Big Book of Creativity Games. In connection with Psychology Today, he has interviewed Jimmy Carter, Laura Bush, Tipper Gore, Steve Allen and more than 200 other prominent individuals. In a spring 2002 editorial in Psychology Today, he suggested that people can deliberately learn to love each other through proactive counseling and other means, and on Valentine's Day 2003, he signed a "Love Contract" with a woman he barely knew to test his idea. He plans to test this concept with multiple couples in the near future. repstein@post.harvard.edu

John Gray, PhD, therapist, columnist, lecturer and author of 12 bestsellers including Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, the number one best-selling book of the last decade. In the last ten years, over 30 million Mars and Venus books have been sold in over 40 languages around the world.  An expert in the fields of communication and relationships, Gray's focus is to help men and women understand, respect and appreciate their differences.  He has appeared on Oprah, Good Morning America, The Today Show, The View, Politically Incorrect, Larry King Live and others and has been profiled in USA Today, Time, TV Guide, People, New Age Journal, Forbes and other publications. In addition to being a certified family therapist, Gray is consulting editor of The Family Journal, a member of the distinguished advisory board of the International Association of Marriage and Family Counselors and a member of the American  Counseling Association. He was the recipient of the 2001 Smart Marriages Impact Award. He lives with his wife and three daughters in northern California. www.marsvenus.com

Pat Love, EdD, distinguished faculty, trainer, speaker and author has written/co-written four books including What To Do When a Parent's Love Rules Your Life, Hot Monogamy, The Truth About Love and the newly released How to Ruin a Perfectly Good Relationship. With Sunny Shulkin she developed the innovative Passion Program and is co-director of the new Living Love video series with Jon Carlson. She has been a guest of every major talk show including several appearances on Oprah and Today. The neuro-spiritual nature of relationships is her current passion. She is married, lives in Austin, Texas and is a mother and grandmother. www.patlove.com

Howard Markman, PhD, is a professor of psychology and co-director of the Center for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver and a practicing marital therapist. His research on the prediction and prevention of relationship discord and divorce and the effects of conflict and relationship distress on mental health, funded for 20 years by the NIMH, has produced over 100 journal articles, books and papers. With Scott Stanley, he developed the PREP program  (Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program), has conducted several PREP effectiveness studies including a current one involving religious organizations. A recipient of the 2001 Smart Marriages Impact Award, he is co-author of a new book 12 Hours to a Great Relationship (Fall, 2003), as well as the best-selling Fighting for Your Marriage. He is also co-author of Why Do Fools Fall in Love? We Can Work It Out, and 4 books in the Fighting for Your Marriage series. He appears regularly in the media(e.g., Oprah, Today, USA Today). His interests also
include the effects of relationship discord and divorce on mental illness, of love and a great relationship on mental health, the science of prevention, and the dissemination of empirically-based interventions to
communities and social policy makers.  www.prepinc.com

Janice Levine, PhD, is a clinical psychologist who specializes in couples relationships and family development. She received her undergraduate degree from Yale University and her graduate degrees from Harvard University, where she later joined the faculty in Psychology and then became Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.  She is co-author of the books Why Do Fools Fall in Love? and Beyond the Chuppah: A Jewish Guide to Happy Marriages, and founder of The Couples Health Program, a nationally recognized curriculum that teaches couples how to achieve greater intimacy through communication and conflict-resolution skills.   Dr. Levine is a frequent contributor to major broadcast and print media, has hosted her own Parent Education TV Series, appeared regularly as guest relationship expert on the Internet�s "Psychology Today Live" Talk Show with Dr. Robert Epstein, and now lectures nationally on all aspects of couples� and family relationships.   An avid tennis player and former concert violinist, Dr. Levine lives with her husband of 23 years and their two children in Lexington, Massachusetts.  www.janicelevine.com,

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