Limerence
Limerence is a state of mind resulting from romantic feelings for someone. It involves intrusive and melancholic thoughts – or tragic concerns for the object of one's affection – along with a desire for a relationship.
Overview
Psychologist Dorothy Tennov made the word limerence[1] to describe a concept based on her work in the 1960s, when she interviewed over 500 people on the topic of love.[2] As per Tennov, limerence can be seen as falling in love,[2][3] infatuation,[2][3] or lovesickness.[2][3]
Many experts have seen infatuation as a synonym for limerence.[2][4] However, Tennov and other experts said that infatuation had a negative meaning, sometimes as a pejorative, to refer to situations including a teenager being obsessed with a celebrity.[4]
In Robert Sternberg's triangular theory of love, infatuation refers to romantic passion without intimacy or commitment.[4] Sternberg himself believed limerence to be the same as infatuation.[4]
Prevalence
Not everyone experiences limerence.[2][3] Tennov estimated that 35% of men and 50% of women experience limerence.[2][3] Experiencing limerence sometimes comes with social stigma as it is often seen as sickly.[2][3] Tennov noted that limerence was not a mental illness,[2][3] despite it sometimes being "highly disruptive and extremely painful [...] irrational, silly, embarrassing, and abnormal".[2][3]
Components
The components as described in Love and Limerence include but not limited to:[2][3]
- acute desire for reciprocation
- acute sensitivity to any act, thought or condition that can be interpreted positively
- intrusive thoughts about the object of your passionate desire (the limerent object or "LO")
- fear of rejection and sometimes incapacitating but always unsettling shyness in LO's presence
- temporary relief from unrequited limerent passion via vivid imagination of LO's actions as reciprocation
- mood dependence on LO's actions or, more accurately, your interpretation of LO's actions regarding the probability of reciprocation
- a remarkable ability to emphasize what is admirable in LO and to avoid dwelling on the negative, even to respond with a compassion for the negative and turn it into a positive feature
Controversy
In 2008, Albert Wakin, a professor who knew Tennov at the University of Bridgeport, and Duyen Vo, a graduate student, pointed out the similarities between limerence and obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), or substance abuse.
They presented their work to the American Association of Behavioral and Social Sciences (AABSS) conference and suggested that much more research would be needed before proposals could be made to the American Psychological Association (APA) to include limerence in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). They then did an unpublished study, which found that 25‒30% of their participants had had a limerent relationship.[5]
Anthropologist Helen Fisher later commented on Wakin's and Vo's study, "They are associating the negative aspects of it with the term, and that can be a disorder."[5] Fisher is one of those who originally compared limerence to OCD, proposing that romantic love is a "natural addiction", which can be either positive or negative.[2]
References
- ↑ "Will limerence take the place of love?". The Observer. 11 September 1977.
One of the most illuminating sessions was when Dorothy Tennov [...] described her attempts to find a suitable term for 'romantic love.' [...] 'I first used the term "amorance" then changed it back to "limerence",' she told her audience. 'It has no roots whatsoever. It looks nice. It works well in French. Take it from me it has no etymology whatsoever.'
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11
- Tennov, Dorothy (1998). "Love Madness". In De Munck, Victor C. (ed.). Romantic Love and Sexual Behavior: Perspectives from the Social Sciences. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-275-95726-1. Retrieved September 8, 2024.
- "That crazy little thing called love". The Guardian. December 14, 2003. Archived from the original on 25 May 2024. Retrieved 15 April 2009.
- Tennov, Dorothy (1999). Love and Limerence: the Experience of Being in Love. Scarborough House. ISBN 978-0-8128-6286-7. Archived from the original on 27 March 2023. Retrieved March 12, 2011.
- Fisher, Helen (2016). Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage, and Why We Stray (Completely Revised and Updated). W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-34974-0. Archived from the original on 18 February 2024. Retrieved February 18, 2024.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8
- Frankel, Valerie (2002). "The Love Drug" (web). Oprah. Archived from the original on March 20, 2024. Retrieved March 19, 2024.
- Fisher, Helen; Aron, Arthur; Mashek, Debra; Li, Haifang; Brown, Lucy (2002). "Defining the Brain Systems of Lust, Romantic Attraction, and Attachment". Archives of Sexual Behavior. 31 (5): 413–419. doi:10.1023/A:1019888024255. PMID 12238608. Archived from the original on February 18, 2024. Retrieved February 18, 2024.
- Bode, Adam; Kushnick, Geoff (April 11, 2021). "Proximate and Ultimate Perspectives on Romantic Love". Frontiers in Psychology. 12. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.573123. PMC 8074860. PMID 33912094.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3
- Sternberg, Robert (1986). "A triangular theory of love". Psychological Review. 93 (2): 119–135. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.93.2.119.
- Diamond, Lisa (Jan 2003). "What does sexual orientation orient? A biobehavioral model distinguishing romantic love and sexual desire". Psychological Review. 110 (1): 173–92. doi:10.1037/0033-295x.110.1.173. PMID 12529061.
- Acevedo, Bianca; Aron, Arthur (1 March 2009). "Does a Long-Term Relationship Kill Romantic Love?". Review of General Psychology. 13 (1): 59–65. doi:10.1037/a0014226.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Jayson, Sharon (6 February 2008). "'Limerence' makes the heart grow far too fonder". USA Today. Gannett Co. Inc. Archived from the original (web) on 10 February 2008. Retrieved 16 October 2008.