Love as Emotional Container and Integrative Flow (LECIF) A Unified Model of Affective Coherence

This paper proposes that love is not a discrete emotion, but a dual-function relational architecturecomposed of:An emotional container — the regulatory environment that safely holds the full spectrum of humanaffect.An integrative flow-state — the dynamic movement of emotion, attention, and cognition towardcoherence.Drawing from attachment science, affect regulation, co-regulation research, neuroscience of romanticlove, psychological flow theory, cross-cultural theology, and anthropological convergence, this papersynthesizes existing evidence into a unified model.This framework directly interfaces with:PLWT — which posits love as an energy-like coherence generator; RBT — which models movementbetween coherence and fragmentation; BNRI — which frames betrayal as a discrete collapse injury.This paper does not introduce new data. It synthesizes established findings into a coherent conceptualstructure. Version 2.1 (September 2026) is a corrected-references reprint. Every reference was verified against its publisher or database record and every in-text citation was read against the source's abstract; entries that did not carry their sentence were moved to the source that does. The argument, structure and wording are otherwise unchanged. 35 references, all verified; Feldman (2007) corrected to its journal; the three sibling-paper citations now appear in the body; Zaki & Ochsner (2012) placed on empathic attunement.