This is a idea that is given some credence in the medical literature, and it’s founded on two pillars – first, people in love display a lot of the same behaviour as addicts, and second, drugs of abuse act on the neural circuits that are also the basis of the pleasurable sensations of being in love. The first point to address is the idea that love itself is an addiction. Love addiction is seeking the euphoric hit of romantic excitement, (that can in principle come from anyone who can serve as a romantic vehicle) limerence is a psychological state of obsessive desire for a specific person.Īs ever, I think that approaching this question from the perspective of neuroscience is a worthwhile approach to digging deeper. Limerence is better described as person addiction than love addiction, as it is the company and reciprocation of the other person that is craved above all else. Limerence is a description for the altered mental state that people can succumb to when experiencing profound infatuation for another person. Love addiction is most commonly defined as compulsively seeking the experience of “falling in love” and craving the feelings of euphoria and elation caused by connecting romantically with someone new. I think it is useful to understand whether we are all in that parable of the blind men trying to describe an elephant, or if there really is a distinction between limerence and other manifestations of love addiction. Some commentators use this interchangeably with limerence to describe a state of romantic distress characterised by obsession, but others link it more to co-dependency, relationship OCD, or sex addiction.
A good example of this ambiguity is the term “love addiction”.
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