Love and Other Drugs

In the UK, Cannabis is a Schedule 1 ‘drug’, defined as having high abuse potential with no currently accepted medical value, although extracts from the plant are licensed medicines. One metabolite, THC, is largely responsible for the rewarding, addictive, analgesic, anti-emetic, memory loss, dissociative, anxiogenic, psychotic effects of Cannabis. CBD, another metabolite, may have anti-psychotic, anxiolytic and does have anti-epileptic and anti-inflammatory activity. The other 100+ unique metabolites in the plant have yet to be completely defined for bioactivity alone or in combination.

Dr Kontogianni research interests lie within Intimate Relationships, Relationship Conflict, Sexuality, LGBT psychology Masculinity and Femininity. She also leads on Staff development and staff well-being and teaches on several undergraduate modules, including Gender Body Image and Identity and the Psychology of Sex. Her talk tonight will focus on why we seek out romantic partners. She will also explore theories on the different types of love called "love typologies".

Orson Welles allegedly said, “We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone”. This talk will consider what can happen when people try to escape loneliness in ways that can cause alarm and harm to others, on the basis that we could understand some criminal behaviour as love that has gone awry. We will examine hypothetical examples that are routine within the work of forensic psychologists and explore whether this different perspective helps us to understand some aspects crime.