Ideas worth spreading

The difference between healthy and unhealthy love

10,518,732 views | Katie Hood • TED2019

In a talk about understanding and practicing the art of healthy relationships, Katie Hood reveals the five signs you might be in an unhealthy relationship -- with a romantic partner, a friend, a family member -- and shares the things you can do every day to love with respect, kindness and joy. "While love is an instinct and an emotion, the ability to love better is a skill we can all build and improve on over time," she says.

In a talk about understanding and practicing the art of healthy relationships, Katie Hood reveals the five signs you might be in an unhealthy relationship -- with a romantic partner, a friend, a family member -- and shares the things you can do every day to love with respect, kindness and joy. "While love is an instinct and an emotion, the ability to love better is a skill we can all build and improve on over time," she says.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Learn more about One Love's work to empower the next generation to love better and put a stop to relationship abuse.

Support One Love's work to reach more young people and create more films and tools to teach them about healthy and unhealthy relationships.

About the speaker

Katie Hood

Relationship revolutionary

See speaker profile

By educating young people about the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships, Katie Hood hopes to derail abusive behavior before it starts and impact the relationship health of an entire generation.

One Love | Article

"10 Signs of an Unhealthy Relationship"

One Love's approach involves content, conversation and community action to help individuals and drive change. The vision is to do for this issue what Mother's Against Drunk Drivers did a generation ago; give friends a language for a topic that has been taboo; and empower a whole front line to help that has never been activated before. Here is a selection of our resources.

One Love | Watch

"The Couplets"

One Love's current film content is appropriate for ages 11 and up, and our tools have been used to start conversations with nearly 700,000 young people across the US, and increasingly the world over, the last four years. Any person anywhere who would like to use One Love's powerful and relatable films (such as "The Couplets") to start conversations with the young people they love about relationship health can go here for free access to these tools.

One Love | Explore

"The Escalation Workshop"

"The Escalation Workshop" is a powerful, film-based workshop that opens people's eyes to the warning signs of relationship abuse.

One Love | Explore

"Behind the Post Workshop"

Explore the 10 warning signs of an unhealthy relationship that are featured in the above film.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Learn more about One Love's work to empower the next generation to love better and put a stop to relationship abuse.

Support One Love's work to reach more young people and create more films and tools to teach them about healthy and unhealthy relationships.