Love addiction
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Love addiction is a proposed model of pathological passion-related behavior involving the feeling of falling and being in love. A medical review of related behaviors in animals and humans concluded that current medical evidence does not have definitions or criteria on an addiction model for love addiction, but there are reported similarities to substance dependence, such as euphoria and desire in the stimuli (drug intoxication), as well as anhedonia and negative levels of mood when away from the stimuli (drug withdrawal), intrusive thoughts on it, and disregard for adverse consequences.[1] There has never been a reference to love addiction in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a compendium of mental disorders and diagnostic criteria published by the American Psychiatric Association.[2]
Medical research on love addiction is still ongoing today, and it has not yet been scientifically confirmed whether or not it is an addiction.[1]
History
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The history of the concept | |
The History and Rise of Sex and Love Addiction (INFOGRAPHIC) |
The modern history of the concept of the love addict – ignoring such precursors as
However, it was not until the 1970s and 1980s that the concept came to the popular fore.
Cultural examples
- In A Spy in the House of Love, the heroine Sabina is said to have seen her 'love anxieties as resembling those of a drug addict, of alcoholics, of gamblers. The same irresistible impulse, tension, compulsion and then depression following the yielding to the impulse'.[10] As a result, she has subsequently been described as 'feeling like a "love addict" enslaved to obsessive-compulsive patterns of behaviour'.[11]
- P. G. Wodehouse features in The Inimitable Jeeves 'a character called Bingo who on about every third page meets a wonderful new woman who is going to save his life and is better than any woman he has ever met before, and then of course it flops ... a new burst of life, but it does not last'.[12]
- St. Augustine – 'to Carthage then I came, where a cauldron of unholy loves sang all about my ears'[13] – has been interpreted as being, 'fundamentally, what one might call a "love addict"', with a disturbing tendency 'to invest all of himself in relationships and to "forget himself" in the intensity of his affection'.[14]
- Splendor in the Grass [both the poem and the movie] are about love addiction Natalie Wood went into a mental institution when her boyfriend left her.
- "What though the radiance which was once so bright.
- Be now for ever taken from my sight.
- Though nothing can bring back the hour
- of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
- we will grieve not, rather find :Strength in what remains behind; :in the primal sympathy which having been must ever be;
- in the soothing thoughts that spring.
- Out of human suffering;
- in the faith that looks through death;
- in years that bring the philosophic mind."
– William Wordsworth
See also
- Codependence
- Disease model of addiction
- Limerence
- Obsessive love
- Unrequited love
- Yandere
References
- ^ S2CID 12189769.
- ISBN 978-1-59285-733-3The book has been translated into Spanish as Es Amor O Es Adicción)
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- ^ Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (New York 1951) p. 769
- ^ Sigmund Freud, Case Studies II (PFL 9) p. 273 and p. 361
- ^ Maggie Scarf, Unfinished Business: Pressure Points in the Lives of Women (Ballantine Books, 1995) Chapter 12.
- ^ Quoted in Susan Peabody, Addiction to Love
- ^ Quoted in Bruce E. Levine, Commonsense Rebellion (2003) p. 242
- ^ Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous official website
- ^ "Letter to Healthcare Professional" distributed at 2012 SASH Conference.
- ^ Anaïs Nin, A Spy in the House of Love (Penguin 1986) p. 36
- ^ Anne T. Salvatore, Anaïs Nin's Narratives (2001) p. 67
- ^ Neville Symington, Narcissism: A New Theory (2004) p. 56
- ^ Quoted in T. S. Eliot, The Complete Plays and Poems (London 1985) p. 79
- ^ Judith C. Stark, Feminist Interpretations of Augustine (2007) p. 246
Further reading
- Books
- Love and Addiction by Stanton Peele, PhD. (New American Library, 1975) ISBN 978-99912-2-557-9
- Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous: The Basic Text for the Augustine Fellowship (Augustine Fellowship, 1986) ISBN 978-0-9615701-1-8
- Women, Sex, and Addiction: A Search for Love and Power by Charlotte Davis. (William Morrow Paperbacks, 1990) ISBN 978-0-06-097321-6
- When You Love too Much by Stephen Arterburn (Regal, 1991) ISBN 978-0-8307-3623-2
- Facing Love Addiction: Giving Yourself the Power to Change the Way You Love by Pia Mellody. (HarperOne, 1992) ISBN 978-0-06-250604-7
- The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships by Patrick Carnes, PhD. (HCI, 1997) ISBN 978-1-55874-526-1
- Confusing Love with Obsession: When Being in Love Means Being in Control by John D Moore. (Hazelden, 2006) ISBN 978-1-59285-356-4
- Surviving Withdrawal: The Breakup Workbook for Love Addicts by Jim Hall, MS (Health C., 2011) ISBN 978-1-4675-7312-2
- Love Addict: Sex, Romance, and Other Dangerous Drugs by Ethlie Ann Vare. (HCI, 2011) ISBN 978-0-7573-1595-4
- Making Advances: A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addictions (SASH, 2012) ISBN 978-0-9857472-0-6
- “Is It Love, or Is It Addiction” by Brenda Schaeffer. (Hazelden, 2009) ISBN 1592857337
- Articles