Why I Wrote a Book About Limerence
- Orly Miller
- Dec 25, 2025
- 2 min read
Publishing Limerence: The Psychopathology of Loving Too Much has been one of the most meaningful projects of my career, and today I want to share a little about why I felt called to write it.
Over the years I have sat with many clients who were struggling with an experience they could not name. They described intrusive thoughts, overwhelming longing, emotional highs and lows, and a sense that their lives were being overtaken by the hope of someone else’s attention. These stories were striking in their intensity, and yet there was often shame attached, as if feeling this way was a private failing.
When I first encountered the concept of limerence it gave language to something I had seen again and again. But I also noticed how little attention it had received in psychology. It was rarely discussed in training, overlooked in clinical frameworks, and often dismissed as mere infatuation. Meanwhile, the people living through it were suffering deeply.
I wrote this book to bridge that gap. My aim was to bring limerence into the light, to show that it is not trivial but a profound psychological state with serious consequences for those who experience it. I wanted to ground it in research, connect it to attachment and trauma, and argue for its recognition in clinical practice. At the same time I wanted the book to speak to anyone who has lived it, to offer them validation, understanding, and hope.
For me this book is about more than defining limerence. It is about compassion. It is about recognising the human longing that sits beneath obsession and finding ways to meet those needs in healthier, more sustaining relationships. It is also about challenging the field of psychology to take this phenomenon seriously and to continue researching it.
On this holiday, as I reflect on the book’s release, I feel grateful for the opportunity to share these ideas more widely. My hope is that the book will not only spark conversations but also help people feel less alone in their struggles.
What utter gaslighting. If pathologizing limerence is about "compassion", why is it that when the APA wants to "destigmatize" something, they take it OUT of the DSM? Who in their right mind thinks calling something "pathological", "unhealthy" and "maladaptive" is somehow "compassionate"?
The problem is the APA says everything in there is abnormal or akin to "disease". When they wanted to treat grief, they couldn't just do that, they had to make up "prolonged grief disorder". This is a problem with how the field operates. Somebody who really had "compassion" would be trying to argue that the field should operate in a different way, that doesn't stigmatize everyone they want to "help". I for one am frankly tired of losing friends when…