What is Limerence?

Limerence describes the experience of having an uncontrollable desire for someone. An obsession that consumes a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. The limerent person struggles to think about anything else and neglects their social life, work, and other responsibilities. Essentially, limerence is a state of being stuck between uncertainty and hope. This state of irresolution causes the limerent to become preoccupied, closely analysing the subject’s behaviour and body language. They may also ruminate about past encounters and fantasize about the future. The key feature of limerence is that these thoughts and yearnings are uncontrollable and all-consuming.The term was first coined by psychologist Dorothy Tenov in the 1970s when she conducted a series of interviews and noticed some people’s experiences of love were particularly intense. She found that this intense feeling can affect anybody regardless of gender, age, culture, background, or any other trait.Because it can cause such significant problems in someone’s life, the interest in finding a way to treat limerence is growing within the therapy field. In psychotherapy, we explore diversity of experience with empathy, and without judgement.

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