Tough love is the act of treating a person sternly or harshly with the intent to help them in the long run.
Description
Bill Milliken described tough love through the expression, "I don't care how this makes you feel toward me. You may hate my guts, but I love you, and I am doing this because I love you."Milliken strongly emphasizes that a relationship of care and love is a prerequisite of tough love, and that it requires that caregivers communicate clearly their love to the subject. Maia Szalavitz believes, based on her own experience, that this may be difficult, since some people experiencing addiction consider themselves unworthy of love and find it difficult to believe others love them.In most uses, there must be some actual love or feeling of affection behind the harsh or stern treatment to be defined as tough love. For example, genuinely concerned parents refusing to support their drug-addicted child financially until he or she enters drug rehabilitation would be said to be practicing tough love.Tim Hawkes has described tough love as putting "principles before popularity" and allowing loved ones to...