Love addiction

Love addiction is a proposed disorder concept involving love relations characterized by severe distress and problematic passion-seeking despite adverse consequences. Academics do not currently agree on a precise definition of love addiction or when it needs to be treated. Love addiction can be contrasted with passionate love (the early stage of romantic love) which may be intense but still be prosocial and positive when reciprocated. Research on the biology of romantic love indicates that passionate love resembles a behavioral addiction, but it has evolved for the purpose of pair bonding.

A 2010 medical inquiry concluded that medical evidence at the time did not have definitions or criteria to classify love addiction as a disorder. Furthermore, the authors state there is a risk of misunderstanding and "overmedicalizing" people who experience it. The term "love addiction" does not appear in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a compendium of mental disorders and diagnostic criteria published by the American Psychiatric Association.

Love addiction is different from codependence, although historically the concepts have been conflated as if synonymous. Love addiction has also been compared to (as analogous to or encompassing) the concepts of obsessive love, lovesickness and limerence.

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