Limerence
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Limerence is an involuntary state of mind which results from a romantic attraction to another person combined with an overwhelming, obsessive need to have one's feelings reciprocated. The psychologist Dorothy Tennov coined the term "limerence" in her 1979 book Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love to describe the concept that had grown out of her work in the mid-1960s, when she interviewed over 500 people on the topic of love.
More recently, limerence has been defined in relation to obsessive compulsive disorder as “an involuntary interpersonal state that involves intrusive, obsessive, and compulsive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are contingent on perceived emotional reciprocation from the object of interest”. Limerence has also been defined in terms of the potentially inspirational effects and the relationship to attachment theory, which is not exclusively sexual, as being "an involuntary potentially inspiring state of adoration and attachment to a limerent object involving intrusive and obsessive thoughts, feelings and behaviors from euphoria to despair, contingent on perceived emotional reciprocation”.
Attachment theory emphasizes that "many of the most intense emotions arise during the formation, the maintenance, the disruption, and the renewal of attachment relationships". It has been suggested that "the state of limerence is the conscious experience of sexual incentive motivation" during attachment formation: "a kind of subjective experience of sexual incentive motivation" during the "intensive...pair-forming stage" of human affectionate bonding.
See also
- Erotomania
- Infatuation
- Limerence (film)
- New relationship energy
- Obsessive love
- Puppy love
- Unrequited love
