Unconditional love
Unconditional love is affection or care offered without making it depend on another person meeting requirements or providing something in return.
Agape: Agape is selfless, benevolent love, especially in Christian theology and Greek philosophy. It names a tradition of generous love often used to describe love without conditions.
Parenting: Parenting is the ongoing work of caring for and guiding a child. Parental love is a common example, though healthy guidance can still include boundaries and consequences.
Conditional love: Conditional love is affection or care made contingent on specified behavior, achievement, or reciprocity. It is the direct opposite: affection is explicitly tied to meeting requirements.
Moral responsibility: Moral responsibility is accountability for actions under standards of obligation, choice, and blameworthiness. The tension is whether unconditional love changes how accountability should be expressed, not whether actions matter.
Acceptance: Acceptance is recognizing or allowing a person, situation, or experience without requiring it to change first. Unconditional love is often expressed as accepting someone while still recognizing their limits.
Person-centered therapy: Person-centered therapy is a humanistic approach that emphasizes empathy, congruence, and acceptance. Carl Rogers's idea of unconditional positive regard gives this ideal a specific therapeutic form.
Codependency: Codependency is a pattern of relational behavior in which one person's needs or identity become excessively organized around another's problems. It can be mistaken for unconditional devotion, although it often involves harmful self-neglect and dependence.
Family estrangement: Family estrangement is the sustained reduction or ending of contact between relatives. Estrangement raises whether love can persist when continued contact is unsafe or unwanted.
Attachment theory: Attachment theory explains how early relationships shape patterns of emotional bonding and security. Its account of secure bonds helps distinguish enduring care from approval that must be earned.
Unconditional positive regard: Unconditional positive regard is a therapist's accepting attitude toward a client without making acceptance contingent on particular feelings or actions. It translates unconditional acceptance into a defined therapeutic stance.