INSPIRATION
doctor didn’t realize that your cold was caused by
a virus, so he treated it with an antibiotic, a topical skin cream, or an antidepressant. Those treatments would be ineffective because none of them
addresses the actual problem—and the same is
true for the mistakes people commonly make regarding affection. Sadly, people who continue to
feel affection deprived over time tend to cope with
that feeling in some unconstructive ways, as we’ll
explore.
Finally, after trevailing, we reach our destination:
an examination of effective strategies for combatting loneliness and meeting your affection needs. If
you’re considering this journey at all, you’ve probably felt the frustration of experiencing affection
hunger and attempting without success to improve
your situation. Many people eventually come to
believe their loneliness is a permanent state, when
in fact, they simply haven’t learned how to address
it successfully. The answers are there, though, if we
know where to find them. That’s the purpose of our
travels in this book.
Welcome aboard—I’m glad to have you along on
this trip.
19 | NEW CONSCIOUSNESS REVIEW
Kory Floyd is a professor
of family and interpersonal communication at Arizona State University. He
has studied the communication of affection in close
relationships and its connection with health and
wellness for more than
twenty years. Dr. Floyd’s
work has been featured on The Today Show,
Huffington Post Live, NPR and BBC radio, and
in articles in dozens of magazines and newspapers, including Women’s Health, Redbook, Glamour, Seattle Times, Denver Times, and Cleveland
Plain Dealer. He has written multiple textbooks
and scholarly books about communication in
personal relationships, and he writes the Affectionado blog for Psychology Today. He currently
lives in Tucson, Arizona.
www.koryfloyd.com