My New Book on Limerence: The Psychopathology of Loving Too Much - Out Today!!!
- Orly Miller
- Dec 23, 2025
- 2 min read
Today is a very special day. My book Limerence: The Psychopathology of Loving Too Much has just been released by Routledge. Writing this book has been a journey of research, reflection, and deep commitment to bringing more awareness to an experience that affects so many people but is rarely talked about in the field of psychology.
Limerence is more than just a passing infatuation. It is an intense, enduring state of longing for another person that can disrupt daily life, strain relationships, and leave those experiencing it feeling isolated and misunderstood. Despite its profound impact, limerence has remained under-researched and often dismissed. My goal in this book is to give it the attention it deserves, both clinically and culturally.
In these pages, I explore limerence from multiple perspectives: psychological, neurobiological, relational, and symbolic. I share case studies, diagnostic frameworks, and therapeutic approaches, while also weaving in mythological and cultural understandings that show just how universal this experience is. My argument is simple but important: limerence deserves recognition as a serious clinical issue, and it is time we bring it out of the shadows.
This book is for anyone who has felt consumed by longing, who has struggled to understand why an attachment feels so powerful and unshakable, or who wants to support someone going through it. It is also for therapists and clinicians seeking tools and language to work with clients who present with limerent symptoms.
You can find Limerence: The Psychopathology of Loving Too Much through Routledge and major booksellers starting today. Click the button below to get a copy. I am deeply grateful to share this work with the world, and I hope it offers both clarity and compassion to those who need it.
There is an actual review of where the literature stands on love addiction here, and there are several authors who have even commented on this directly, including Stanton Peele himself, and "limerence" being included in the search criteria for the Sussman review (2010). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_addiction Limerence also falls under proposed diagnostic criteria, especially criteria proposed by Redcay. The problem is the influencers talking about limerence are simply too lazy to actually read anything. Otherwise they would know that limerence is already discussed in the mainstream clinical literature, and there is already published theory on how addictive love works (e.g. Burkett & Young, 2012; Fisher et al., 2016).
Nobody has ever "dismissed" limerence, and there is a research literature on what it is (intense passionate/romantic love absent a relationship). People who say stuff like this are simply in full on denial mode. "Clinical" limerence has been included in the academic discussion of love addiction. Ethicists don't agree on how it's appropriate to define a love disorder (see Earp, 2017). That's literally all the issue has ever been, until some uncredentialed people started spreading misinformation about this around 2010. Willmott & Bentley even fully admit this in their self-published book, that limerence is romantic love/lovesickness/unrequited love. Her book then went out of print, so people can't find out that she says this, but there are links to scans on the…