Editing Limerence (section)

==Controversy==
In 2008, Albert Wakin, a professor who knew Tennov at the [[University of Bridgeport]] but did not assist in her research, and Duyen Vo, a graduate student, suggested that limerence is similar to [[Obsessive–compulsive disorder|obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD)]] and [[substance use disorder|substance use disorder (SUD)]]. They presented work to an American Association of Behavioral and Social Sciences conference, but suggested that much more research is needed before it could be proposed to the [[American Psychological Association|APA]] that limerence be included in the [[Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders|DSM]]. They began conducting an unpublished study and reported to ''[[USA Today]]'' that about 25% or 30% of their participants had experienced a limerent relationship as they defined it.<ref name="usatoday">{{cite news
 | first = Sharon | last = Jayson | title = 'Limerence' makes the heart grow far too fonder | url = https://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-02-06-limerence_N.htm | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080210054316/https://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-02-06-limerence_N.htm | archive-date = 10 February 2008 | format = web | work = USA Today | publisher = Gannett Co. Inc. | date = 6 February 2008 | access-date = 16 October 2008 }}</ref>

While limerence and romantic love in general have been compared to OCD since 1998 according to a hypothesis invented by other authors, experimental evidence for a connection with [[serotonin]] is ambiguous.<ref name="fisher1998" /><ref name="leckmanmayes" /><ref name="proximateandultimate"/> This hypothesis was based on a superficial comparison between features of preoccupation shared between the two conditions, for example focusing on trivial details or worrying about the future.<ref name="leckmanmayes" /> A 2025 study found no association between [[Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor|SSRI]] use and obsessive thinking about a loved one or the intensity of romantic love.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Bode |first1=Adam |last2=Kowal |first2=Marta |last3=Cannas Aghedu |first3=Fabio |last4=Kavanagh |first4=Phillip S. |date=15 April 2025 |title=SSRI use is not associated with the intensity of romantic love, obsessive thinking about a loved one, commitment, or sexual frequency in a sample of young adults experiencing romantic love |journal=Journal of Affective Disorders |language=en |volume=375 |pages=472–477 |doi=10.1016/j.jad.2025.01.103|doi-access=free |pmid=39848471 }}</ref>

[[Helen Fisher (anthropologist)|Helen Fisher]] has commented on Wakin & Vo in 2008, stating that limerence is romantic love and that "They are associating the negative aspects of it with the term, and that can be a disorder."<ref name="usatoday"/> Fisher is one of the original authors to compare limerence to OCD, and has proposed that romantic love is a "natural addiction" which can be either positive or negative depending on the situation.<ref name="fisher2016"/><ref name="fisher1998" /> Fisher stated again in 2024 that she does not think there is any difference between limerence and romantic love.<ref name="madlyinlove"/>

In 2017, Wakin has stated that he feels that brain scans of limerence would help establish it as "something unlike everything that has been diagnosed already",<ref name=":12">{{Cite news |last=Haward |first=Jenny |date=16 Nov 2017 |title=Can You Be Addicted To Love? We Take A Look At Limerence |url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/can-you-be-addicted-to-love-we-take-a-look-at-limerence_n_61087600e4b0999d2084f2c0 |url-status= |access-date=17 September 2024 |work=[[HuffPo]]}}</ref> but brain scans have actually been described since as far back as 2002.<ref name="fisher2002" /><ref name="usatoday" /><ref name="beam-limerence-fisher"/> In Fisher et al.'s original brain scan experiments, all participants spent more than 85% of their waking hours thinking about their loved one.<ref name="fisher2016" /> Wakin also claims that a person experiencing limerence can never be satiated, even if their feelings are reciprocated.<ref name=":12" /> Tennov found many cases of nonlimerent people who described their limerent partners being "stricken with a kind of insatiability" in this way, and that "no degree of attentiveness was ever sufficient".<ref>{{harvnb|Tennov|1999|pp=136–137}}</ref> However, according to Tennov's theory, the intensity of limerence diminishes when the limerent person perceives sustained reciprocation, so it is prolonged inside of a relationship when the LO behaves in a nonlimerent manner.<ref name=":6" /><ref>{{harvnb|Tennov|1999|p=135}}</ref> Other authors who are in the mainstream have speculated that unwanted obsession inside a relationship could be related to [[self-esteem]] and an insecure [[attachment style]].<ref name="acevedo2009" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Acevedo |first=Bianca |date=5 May 2016 |title=Is It Love or Desire? |url=https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-highly-romantic-marriage/201605/is-it-love-or-desire |access-date=9 July 2024 |website=[[Psychology Today]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Derrow |first=Paula |date=20 January 2014 |title=When Normal Love Turns Obsessive |url=https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/news/a5382/when-normal-love-turns-obsessive/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240925215031/https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/news/a5382/when-normal-love-turns-obsessive/ |archive-date=25 September 2024 |access-date=25 September 2024 |work=[[Cosmopolitan (magazine)|Cosmopolitan]]}}</ref>

In the 1999 preface to her revised edition of ''Love and Limerence'', [[Dorothy Tennov]] describes limerence as an aspect of basic [[human nature]] and remarks that "Reaction to limerence theory depends partly on acquaintance with the evidence for it and partly on personal experience. People who have not experienced limerence are baffled by descriptions of it and are often resistant to the evidence that it exists. To such outside observers, limerence seems pathological."<ref name="Tennov 1999 x"/> Tennov states that limerence is normal<ref>{{harvnb|Tennov|1999|p=180}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Tennov|1998|p=80}}</ref> and says that even those of her interviewees who experienced limerence of a distressing variety were "fully functioning, rational, emotionally stable, normal, nonneurotic, nonpathological members of society" and "could be characterized as responsible and quite sane". She suggests that limerence is too often interpreted as "mental illness" in psychiatry. Tragedies such as violence, she says, involve limerence when it is "augmented and distorted" by other conditions, which she contrasts with "pure limerence".<ref>{{harvnb|Tennov|1999|pp=89–90}}</ref>

In a 2005 Q&A, Tennov is asked if limerence can ever lead to a situation such as depicted in the movie ''[[Fatal Attraction]]'', but Tennov replies that the movie character seemed to her to be a caricature.<ref>{{harvnb|Tennov|2005|p=371}}</ref> Most romantic [[Stalking|stalkers]] are an [[Breakup|ex-partner]], [[Erotomania|erotomanic]], have a [[personality disorder]], are [[intellect]]ually limited or [[Social skills|socially]] incompetent.<ref name="fisher2016" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Mullen |first1=Paul |last2=Path |first2=Michele |last3=Purcell |first3=Rosemary |last4=Stuart |first4=Geoffrey |date=1 August 1999 |title=Study of Stalkers |journal=[[The American Journal of Psychiatry]] |volume=156 |issue=8 |pages=1244–1249 |doi=10.1176/ajp.156.8.1244 |doi-access=free|pmid=10450267 }}</ref>

One writer who investigated the phenomenon of limerence videos on [[TikTok]] in 2024 has written that it seemed to her that the many videos created by the [[Relationship coaching|relationship coaches]] there were actually about [[Cyberstalking|social media stalking]] rather than having anything at all to do with limerence.<ref name=":19" />