Love and Freedom

Jorge N. Ferrer is a clinical psychologist, author, and educator. He was a professor of psychology for more than 20 years at California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, where he also served as chair of the Department of East–West Psychology. He has published several books and many articles on psychology, education, and religious studies, and his work on alternative intimate relationships has been featured in journals such as Sexuality and Culture and Psychology and Sexuality. Ferrer was an advisor to the Religions for Peace organization at the United Nations. He coined the term "novogamy," which was published in Springer Nature's Encyclopedia of Sexual Psychology and Behavior in June 2023 and is being used widely in the academic literature.

Jorge N. Ferrer's Love and Freedom is a powerful, thought-provoking book, and a very welcome addition to the literature on consensual non-monogamy, and relationships more broadly. Written in a highly engaging and well-informed style, this book contains much of interest to the academic reader while being accessible to activists and general readers as well. Ferrer provides a timely overview on the relationship literature and the ways in which monogamy and polyamory have generally been framed, before heading into binary-busting territory. The divisions between monogamy and non-monogamy, jealousy and compersion, and love and freedom themselves, are all opened up for enjoyable and important exploration and challenge. Drawing on theory and research from biological science through Buddhist philosophy, Ferrer suggests ways in which we could all occupy more fluid and transbinary positions in relation to love, engage in contemplative practices in order to experience love differently, and cultivate relationships which enable both interconnectedness and personal freedom.

• Introduction 1 Relational Freedom and the Crisis of Modern Relationships 2 Mononormativity, Polypride, and the “Mono–Poly Wars” 3 Sympathetic Joy: Beyond Jealousy, Toward Relational Freedom 4 The Dawn of Transbinary Relationships5 Relational Freedom and the Transformation of Intimate RelationshipsCoda: After Covid-19 Appendix I: Ten Theses on Relationships Styles Appendix II: The Alpha Male versus the Omega Man ReferencesIndex