Limerence is an involuntary and highly psychological state marked by intense obsessive yearning for an individual romantic interest. Psychologist Dorothy Tennov first popularized the term in the 1970s to encapsulate this intoxicating feeling. This phenomenon consists of intense emotional instability that often interrupts daily functioning. More recently, its ability to affect the quality of our social connections and mental health has come into the spotlight.
According to Orly Miller, a psychologist specializing in emotional health, limerence is marked by “an intense psychological state of obsessive longing for another person.” It shows up as obsessive thinking, emotional enmeshment, and a deep compulsion for love addiction reciprocation. Unlike ordinary attraction or infatuation, limerence often leads to obsession and emotional upheaval that can interfere with work, relationships, and self-esteem.
Limerence isn’t considered a clinical diagnosis and doesn’t appear in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). It certainly has a large effect on the ways in which people feel and give love and attachment. Miller clarifies that limerence can turn toxic, as all these romantic feelings can become a rollercoaster when it hinders a person’s daily functions. Limerence feelings are particularly strengthened when uncertainty and sporadic communication start with one’s crush. This dynamic only contributes to the emotional landscape being exceptionally messy right now.
Unlike everyday crush or puppy love, limerence takes over your obsession, emotional instability and upheaval of normal life. Miller stated. She went on to explain it as “a complete system stress response,” in which the nervous system swings from hyperarousal to shutdown.
While many aspects of what drives limerence remain a mystery, relationship experts explain their belief that it’s an expression of unfulfilled needs and vulnerability. People with a history of trauma, both personal or collective, may be more vulnerable to falling into this reactive emotional space. The longing for union and relatedness fills people entirely. Rather than forming meaningful, long-lasting attachments, they are more often in hot pursuit of momentary bliss.
This blurry line between limerence and passionate love is key to understanding this complex phenomenon. New relationships are often built on passionate love, the initial stage of romantic development filled with idealization, intense longing, and desire. Limerence frequently pushes hot and heavy ecstatic love over the edge. It turns desire into possession, driving it past even demonic passion.
Sam Shpall, associate professor of philosophy, focused on how public narratives affect our understanding of persistence in romantic relationships. “Art and popular music routinely frame persistence as virtue,” he noted. He cautions that “in reality, persistence against stated boundaries is a reliable marker of harm.” This frame encourages us to reconsider the ways our culture glorifies the hunt and yearning that can come with love.
“For Miller, that cultural framing of love tends to obscure actual intimacy. ‘We’ve been taught that the highest form of love is intensity. Films, music, and even self-help culture romanticize the chase, the longing, the pain. True intimacy is about safety and reciprocity, not emotional chaos.’”
Understanding limerence as a biological phenomenon is empowering. It empowers people to be more aware of their feelings and reactions, more intentional with how they engage with themselves and others. Shpall suggests that “maybe the goal isn’t to eliminate limerence but to cultivate it wisely – to appreciate the intensity of human feeling without being consumed by it.”
In moderate forms, limerence is positively benign and even creative. All of us have had experiences of yearning, the kind that inspires an artistic creation or a resilience and wisdom born out of hard-earned lessons. When it crosses that important line into compulsive behavior that impairs basic functioning, it needs serious scrutiny.
Experts agree that understanding limerence involves recognizing its roots in human vulnerability and yearning for connection. Shpall states that “the experience reveals something about the shape of our vulnerability and our yearning to be seen.” Here, he makes the case that limerence creates obstacles. It is so prevalent and appreciated that we need not see it only as a challenge.