This talk presents Dr. Tobin’s view that human relationships, especially intimate romantic bonds, revolve around a central dynamic in which one’s internal representation of relational trauma previously experienced in one’s life (metaphorically called a “parasite”) gets “injected” into the other (or in one’s partner). All human relationships are constituted by a “sender” of parasitic material and a “recipient" who is unconsciously recruited to host the parasite. Once the parasitic material nests and proliferates in the identity of the recipient, the recipient is gradually but inevitably transformed into a perpetrator who then inflicts relational trauma back onto the sender. In this way, the sender’s previous relational trauma is re-experienced in the contemporary relationship, confirming the sender’s rigid construction of the world, of others, and of human relatedness. According to Dr. Tobin, this dynamic of parasitic love explains the patterns of self-sabotage and self-destruction so common in people’s romantic lives. However, it also suggests a paradigm for understanding all forms of aggression including envy, racism, and overt acts of violence: not only are we consistently injecting our parasitic material into others, but we are constantly inundated with parasitic injections into us and ultimately altered in insidious ways that perpetuate cycles of injustice and self-hatred.

1. Love & Parasites: More on the Recruitment
Paradigm
September 20, 2014
James Tobin, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist, PSY 22074
www.jamestobinphd.com
jt@jamestobinphd.com
949-338-438

2. Jack (“Sender”) and Susan (“Recipient”)

3. Phase I: Evacuation &
Injection

4. Evacuation & Injection Phase
Your relational traumas across your lifespan accumulate and are
internalized; they cannot be tolerated; they must be evacuated and
injected into someone else (the recipient/the host) for emotional
and psychological relief.
Metaphorically, these relational traumas are “parasites” because
they are pathological, remain alive, and consistently seek to survive
and multiply in available hosts.
Romantic love is the primary way these “parasites” are transmitted
to new hosts.

5. There are 3 types of traumatic parasites:
• Type I: What the sender felt as a result of the relational
trauma he/she experienced (e.g., “humiliation”)
• Type II: What the sender thought in order to understand
the relational trauma he/she experienced (e.g., “Those I love
betray me”)
• Type III: The role the sender played in the relational trauma
(e.g., “victim”): once evacuated and injected into another, the
sender achieves the complementary role (e.g., “perpetrator”)
(aka “THE FLIP”)

6. Phase II: Recruitment &
Hosting

7. Recruitment & Hosting Phase
The recruitment process is marked by what is typically known
as “chemistry”: as Jack dates and meets a variety of women,
he is unconsciously looking for a woman who will be more
receptive to his parasitic injections (Type I, II, or III) and
hosting them than any other woman.
We have a remarkable ability to find the most optimal host
for the unique parasites we carry inside of us from our own
traumatic pasts.

8. Recruitment & Hosting Phase
Once recruitment has occurred and injection has started, the
recipient (Susan) begins to serve as the host of Jack’s
parasites.
Susan houses the parasites and begins to be influenced by
them (e.g., she may start to feel subtle shame or vulnerability
– Type I, she may begin to feel edgy or bored – Type II, and/or
she may start to feel emotionally unsafe/insecure – Type III).
In the early part of this phase, the recipient is not cognizant of
what is happening and may simply feel “butterflies.” They are
not butterflies, they are parasites!

9. Phase III: Parasitic Takeover

10. Parasitic Takeover Phase
Susan (the recipient) has unknowingly housed the
parasitic injections of Jack (the sender) and supplied
them with nourishment so that they have flourished,
multiplied, and proliferated throughout her being.
Eventually, the recipient (host – Susan) loses her
“identity” and becomes something she is not.

11. Type I: Susan feels shamed/humiliated (what Jack
once felt).
Type II: Susan is misperceived by Jack and,
psychologically induced by his rigid thoughts
and misperceptions (“you want to betray me
like everyone else has”), may actually betray him
or long to.
Type III: Susan experiences the FLIP: Jack betrays her and she becomes
the victim, i.e., she is cheated upon and feels humiliated. Jack, in the
betrayal, transforms himself from victim to perpetrator.

12. Parasitic Takeover Phase
As Type I, II, and III take over the host’s being, the former
identity of the host symbolically “dies” (her former self is
gone forever as she is literally embodied by the sender’s
parasitic material).
Susan, in relation to Jack, can never claim her former self
again. She has served as his host and she can never reverse
the process and be her prior self in relation to him again.
However, Susan will likely see Jack as she has always seen
him, before he injected his parasites into her.

13. Parasitic Takeover Phase
Susan is now stuck with Jack’s parasitic material; at this
point, the relationship between Jack and Susan ends and
the lifecycle of the parasite begins all over again.
Consequently, Susan goes out and searches for a new
host (this is vividly apparent in cycles of abuse in any
domain of human social relations, i.e., racism, and in the
transmission of mental illness and dysfunction across
multiple generations in families)

14. What to do if you are
Susan (a potential
recipient/host) out
there in the world
meeting Jacks??

15. When You are in the Evacuation & Injection Phase ...
• Realize you are a sought-after host (don’t be naively
romantic)
• Realize parasites will be injected into you, no matter what –
it cannot be avoided
• Make it clear you have little interest in serving as a host for
the other person’s parasites (dating is nothing more that
testing for parasitic receptivity in the other)

16. When You are in the Evacuation & Injection Phase ... 4 Early
Strategies:
(1) Embody the belief and conviction that you don’t need or have
to have the other
(2) Communicate “No!”
(3) Evidence “going-against-the-grain” tendencies (claim your
differentiation from the other)
(4) Comment empathically on the sender’s vulnerabilities,
struggles, and difficulties (don’t be a cheerleader!)

17. When You are in the Recruitment & Hosting Phase ...
Anticipate and realize when you are starting to be
groomed and “entered” parasitically – during the
honeymoon period and immediately after that *** (e.g.,
Susan feels STRONGLY ..... then she shifts from being
head over heels to feeling antsy/bored/flirtatious with
others)

18. When You are in the Recruitment & Hosting Phase ...
Realize that your own insecurities, vulnerabilities, and
unresolved relational traumas make you susceptible to
hosting parasites (maybe Susan was once betrayed –
now she is emotionally pre-determined to betray in her
relationship with Jack)

19. When You are in the Recruitment & Hosting Phase ...
Determine if the feelings emerging inside of you as the
relationship gains momentum (as the parasites
maneuver inside of you) are NEW or OLD (FAMILIAR)

20. When You are in the Recruitment & Hosting Phase ...
If the feelings feel new, i.e., you never experienced them
before, it’s safe to conclude that they are mainly coming
from the sender (the parasites of the sender)

21. When You are in the Recruitment & Hosting Phase ...
If they feelings feel old/familiar, i.e., you have experienced
them before in prior relationships (e.g., prior partners believe
you have a “wondering eye”), realize that you are involved in
a pattern of some kind.
This should signal to you that your model of love (based on
your own previous traumas) is being activated; this is “scar
tissue” and you must understand that the parasites are
seeking out this scar tissue and that is precisely where they
will attempt to burrow and grow (I have been hurt before;
now I am quite receptive to parasites that want me to
betray my lover).

22. When You are in the Parasitic Takeover Phase ...
Best to bow out as you realize you are not the person you
want to be in the relationship or that the structure and/or
dynamics of the relationship have been irrevocably altered –
become parent-child like, for example.

23. After hosting has begun to
occur, you must attempt to
neutralize the parasites as they
attempt to multiply and
proliferate within you – this is a
critical event but it could be
quite prolonged and occur over
many years

24. Say to the Sender (after the 4 Early Strategies):
I am not sure why I am feeling this way, but I wanted to let you
know that I am feeling xyz ....; has this come up before for you in
prior relationships, where your partner has said something similar?
I don’t know why I am feeling xyz with you .... it’s really not like me.
Is it something you have felt before?
When you do or say xyz, I go to a place I really don’t like; in fact, xyz
used to treat me that way and it hurts. If you care about me, please
try to avoid stepping on that old wound.

25. You as a Recruiter/Sender
of Your Own Parasitic
Material into Others

26. • Realize we all store unresolved relational trauma inside
of us
• The extent to which the trauma has not been
“digested” emotionally and psychologically corresponds
to the strength of our drive to find a host and inject
• Our traumas, via parasitic injection, need to be
communicated (Type I), confirmed (Type II), or role-
altered (Type III)

27. You are injecting parasitic
material whenever you do or
say anything vis-a-vis your
partner that is not affirming
of you or not affirming of your
partner’s inner experience

28. The paradoxical goal of our romantic intentionality
(unconscious) is to find a great host for our parasites, inject
them into this host, have the host become overtaken by
them, and, ultimately, have the host “die” as a permanent
receptacle of our trauma.
In this way, the host becomes all of our past perpetrators
embodied into one person who we can now aggress against
and destroy.

29. The threat in all romantic relationships
is that the host we inject our parasites
into neutralizes them and does not
die/does not perpetrate or traumatize
us – LOVE is the return of the parasitic
injections back into the sender
following dialysis conducted by the
recipient (this is the site of the
miraculous interface between empathy,
vulnerability and healing).

30. James Tobin, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist
PSY 22074
220 Newport Center Drive,
Suite 1
Newport Beach, CA 92660
949-338-4388
Email: jt@jamestobinphd.com
Website: www.jamestobinphd.com