Reader Amy got in touch with a query:
What if you end up having Limerence for your therapist? Specifically a trauma therapist who is supposedly trained in attachment issues? Is attachment to a therapist needed to heal from childhood trauma? If there is a strong connection there and trust is built, it seems hard to give up on the work with this person. Lots of new current thinking and models in trauma therapy about how to break barriers between client and therapist. Is it “transference” or limerence?
Any thoughts on this minefield would be appreciated!!
It is a minefield, so I’m going to tread carefully. Trauma has deep, tangled and long-lasting impacts on psychology, and no one school of therapeutic thought has all the answers to how best to approach treatment. In the spirit of that complexity and uncertainty, I’m not going to offer advice to Amy – but I thought it could be useful to think through some of the implications of the psychoanalytic concept of transference from the perspective of limerence.
Dorothy Tennov devoted a section of her book to limerence and therapy, and it is fair to say that she was sceptical to the point of hostility about psychoanalysis and its impact on limerents:
Now that the haze is being lifted from both of these phenomena, it is evident that limerence and psychotherapy have combined to produce untold suffering…
It is essential that the profession be called to task for irresponsibility
Before Love and Limerence she published Psychotherapy: The Hazardous Cure, detailing the damage done by erotic transference to the wellbeing of many female patients. Indeed she credits this previous work as contributing to her understanding of the three conditions for limerence: 1) A person who meets your criteria for an LO, 2) A sign of hope that the person may reciprocate, and 3) Uncertainty. It’s obvious that for psychotherapy as practiced in the 1960s:
…all three conditions were more than admirably met.
In fairness, therapeutic practice has moved on substantially since 1979. Transference is not so widely viewed as a positive and necessary part of therapy, but the nature of the “talking cures” still presents difficulties for limerents.
Misinterpretation of limerence as transference
One of the major reasons why Freudian analysis has become discredited in recent years is the fixation on sexual repression as the root cause, or manifestation of, all neuroses. In that context, erotic feelings on the part of the patient towards the therapist are seen as a positive outcome, as they are evidence of transference – the process of a patient transferring the unresolved emotional pain from their childhood onto the therapist as a surrogate authority figure. This is usually viewed as necessary for healing, as it gives the patient the opportunity to relive the old painful behaviours in a controlled setting, and work through their limiting psychological beliefs with a supportive helper.
For those of us that do not see limerence as a manifestation of disordered bonding, but as an element of romantic love that some people experience, the dangers are obvious. The therapist thinks one thing is happening (transference), but the limerent is actually just succumbing to limerence. The therapist may even encourage the connection, dooming the limerent to a life-altering obsession.
How genuine is the patient-therapist bond?
Therapists can obviously form deep bonds with their patients, being entrusted with secrets and intimacies that the patient may never have shared with anyone else. But, there is an unavoidable transactional component to the relationship too. The sessions are paid for, and the therapist’s living depends on the sessions continuing. Don’t get me wrong – I am sure that the majority of therapists are honest people with a genuine desire to help others, but there has to be a professional boundary in place, and payment is an element of that boundary. So, blurring that boundary by encouraging limerence as tranference is bound to be problematic. The presence of this boundary will also act as a barrier – and we all know what barriers do to the progression of limerence.
The other problem is that the limerent patient is not likely to be behaving genuinely either. Once limerence kicks in, the desire to impress LO becomes overwhelming. This can cause the limerent to fret about their physical appearance, and how their thoughts and opinions are perceived by LO, to an obsessive degree. They are hypervigilant for signs of approval and will present the best possible version of themselves that they can, to persuade LO of their appeal. Hardly the best circumstances to be helped according to their actual needs and problems.
Uncertainty will heighten the limerence
Following on from the issue of barriers, limerence thrives on uncertainty. It’s the rocket fuel. Your typical limerent, presented with someone who is willingly bonding with them, supporting them, maybe occasionally sharing insights into their own personal lives, but also closing down the conversation after a fixed period of time, occupying a position of authority and aloofness, and doing the same thing with all their other clients, is going to suffer uncertainty overload. Especially if the therapist actually is sexually attracted to them, and not as adept at hiding it as they should be.
Combine that with a therapist whose professional community thinks that the manifestations of limerence are evidence of transference that should be encouraged, and you have the perfect recipe for disaster.
It’s the perfect cover for indulging limerence
My general attitude to limerence is that it is a problem if the limerent or LO are not available for a relationship – which they certainly shouldn’t be in a therapeutic context. The purposeful thing to do under those circumstances is work to lessen the bond with LO, work on understanding your psychological triggers, and use what methods are available to “deprogram” yourself from the limerence obsession. The main obstacle to success, is that the limerent really, really wants to fail.
The resistance from your limerent brain is spectacular, for all the reasons I’ve outlined before. So, what if the limerent was offered a socially-sanctioned way to spend time with LO? Indeed, what if they were encouraged that opening up to LO was a healthy and desirable thing? What if they were told that romantic feelings were a good sign that the treatment was working? What if they had the perfect cover for getting limerence highs? Well, all those leading questions illustrate that it’s exactly what the psychotherapeutic environment offers.
Early on, the limerent would be pursuing therapy with the speed and enthusiasm of a rat up a drainpipe. A guilt-free limerence experience! But limerence unresolved is awful. That’s when the emotional pain really starts, which is why I advocate for acting purposefully to prevent the ambiguous bond persisting. If you persist in the limerent connection after the early euphoria has passed and the debilitating obsession kicks in, you’re trapped.
Limerence and attachment
I’ve opined before that the association of limerence with attachment disorders concerns me. The main disconfirming evidence, of course, is people that have otherwise stable attachments and no notable childhood traumas, but still become limerent in the early stages of romantic love. However, if someone does have attachment problems, and is also a limerent, then they have to cope with a double whammy when a romantic bond starts to form. So the question is: is limerence evidence for unhealthy bonding, or is it a confounding variable that some people have to cope with? And – as Amy asks – is attachment to the therapist necessary for recovery? Tennov would have given an emphatic “no”. Seeking a therapist who does not trigger limerence seems a much safer strategy.
Looking to the positives
That’s quite a lot of words devoted to picking apart the problems with transference for limerents. What about the positives? Well, I would say that it does make some sort of intellectual sense to think that re-enacting an attachment style with the therapist as a vehicle for transference could be a route to recovery. Transference is not always erotic (or limerent) so forming a quasi-parental bond with a trustworthy therapist could be valuable.
One option would be to seek out a therapist who is not your limerence match in terms of sex/gender (but tough luck on the bi-limerents). Transference in the sense of caregiver or authority figure roles shouldn’t be as risky for limerents as erotic transference.
Ultimately, this all adds up to a bunch of uncertainty. Therapy is not a science, and so intuition and emotional response do need to be considered when deciding whether to continue with a specific therapist or a particular approach. As ever, using purposeful living as a principle should help. If therapy is not helping you understand yourself better, and not leading you to develop more resilience, security, and self-sufficiency, there is cause to doubt its value. I’m not sure there is a hard and fast rule as to when you should continue with a painful process that may help, or abandon it to try something new, but if limerence for your therapist adds to the distress, then it should probably be confronted (most obviously by disclosure to spouse or therapist, or by ending the therapy and going no contact).
Anyway: enough of the inconclusive speculation. If anyone in the community has experience of this situation either as patient or therapist, please chip in and share your wisdom in the comments.
Best wishes, Amy, and hope you find a purposeful path through this.
“Is attachment to a therapist needed to heal from childhood trauma? ”
If you look in clinical literature, you can find the concept of an “earned secure attachment.” That attachment is usually done with the therapist but it doesn’t have to be. I think I got my earned secure attachment from my wife. It’s been a long time since I looked at it but I think it was Marion Solomon in “Healing Trauma: Attachment, Mind, Body and Brain (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology)” who says it usually takes 3-5 years to achieve it. The book is directed at clinicians but I found the last chapter very relevant.
I got the glimmer from my last therapist, our EAP couselor. That removed any financial incentive an outside therapist might have had. She was an attractive woman in her 40s, flying as a redhead at the time, and we got along really well. She was married, not that was really relevant. In one session, I told her I could spot an unhappy woman a mile away. She came back with, “Not all of them.” We locked eyes for a second. I wanted to come back with, “Sometimes, they’re right under your nose.” But, I came back with, “Yeah, nobody bats 1.000.” She has kind of a zen tilt and I’d send her links to articles that I thought we’d be interested in. I found her pattern of response similar to the pattern I saw with LO #4. I don’t know that it would have developed into anything beyond a professional relationship but it seemed to drift a little off task.
She left as EAP counselor and I haven’t had any contact with her in the last 2 years.
“We locked eyes for a second.”
The eyes tell all… The therapist, who engendered limerence in me, after our last session began talking to me like a friend saying to keep in touch by email & it was a pleasure to meet and work with me. (Is this drifting a little off task?) I made him laugh, then he smiled at me looking directly at me. It was though the sun shone through my eyes to a part of my brain that had otherwise been in shadow. And I was caught…
I am recovering now and doing the FTTF course and reading Dr L’s book, but limerence has certainly shaken me with the intensity of its feelings.
I would love to know if this is a one-time wonder, or am I now sensitised to limerence in future situations?
Also left a lot of details of this in the wrong place in ‘What is Limerence?’ when new to this website before Scharnhorst kindly left details of this post. I wasn’t sure whether it was Erotic Transference or Limerence.
Dr L left a reply for me containing,
” It (therapy) is a context in which emotional connection and bonding is likely, and the patient is also likely to be physiologically aroused (by the emotional significance of the situation). It would be a crucible for limerence if you are sexually attracted to the therapist…”
I was more than pleased with my first therapy experience. I wrote positive reviews online, told my friends that they should get a therapist and I wondered how I lived without having a therapist. I felt alive! To have someone help me better myself is a formula for admiration.
Here’s the limerence part:
Before each appointment I had butterflies in my tummy, after every appt I felt disoriented and I couldn’t concentrate for the rest of the day. Outside of therapy I would fantasize about my therapist teaching me to cope with and manage my anxious thoughts. I’d close my eyes and imagine how I’d thank him for helping me become better… For hours at a time. I was (geez, I still am) in awe of him.
— He told me it was transference and it was normal.
I thought he would be my therapist forever. However, he learned that my husband was white. He, being a white male himself, seemed taken aback… He was seriously shocked.
— Reading this article about how limerents have a “type” gives me insight as to what my therapist may have seen. Perhaps, it was at this point he realized I was a limerent?
In any case, he used the “no contact” technique with me. He referred me to DBT and told me to never contact him again and if I did he said he would take the matter up the chain… I responded with a psychotic break.
—Perhaps, he thought “no contact” and dbt was a great cure for limerence? I trusted him… However, I feel it would’ve been less damaging if he gave me anticipatory guidance or a reason other than “this place is not appropriate for your problem.”
I didn’t know how much I needed him. But, my beautiful black brain did! I started hearing his audible voice in my head. I’d never heard anything besides my own thoughts in my head. To me, at that point in time, it was the most beautiful gift anyone could give; unlimited therapy via telepathy.
Soooo, yeah, that was my experience with quitting my LO cold turkey.
— Perhaps my experience was negative because I didn’t know I had limerent tendencies until the Quarantine. I had time to research and read curriculum outside my field of study.
On a positive note, I did complete DBT. Which taught me to recognize, label, and grade my emotions. For example, I learned that I was extremely enchanted by my therapist which produced a 10 out of 10 on the shame scale. Then, to cope with the shame I would dip my head in a bowl of ice water for 45 seconds.
I’m not bitter, just disappointed in my reason for choosing the particular DBT facility. I thought my therapist referred me there to test me. I figured that when he saw my trust and obedience he would reward me by becoming my therapist again…
— Any time I encounter a male that sparks my limerence I flood with anxiety. If he speaks to me, I do not engage him, I walk the other way.
Therapy helped me become aware of my limerence and I’m grateful. Now I can be more proactive about dealing with it.
However, next time I need help coping with the amount of time I spend away from my kids I’m going to join a bible study.
CA that sounds like a horrific experience. It’s a beautiful thing that you can distill the positives out of it!
And that limerence sparking that evokes anxiety…I am right there with you. I am determined to never have another Limerent Episode again and view that anxiety as protective.
Wishing you continued healing….
Thanks for sharing your story, Condition Awareness. The combination of limerence and psychoanalysis does seem to be a high risk scenario – especially of the therapist handles it poorly (which would be a generous description of your experience!).
I do wonder how many limerents who don’t know about their “condition” experience the glimmer for their therapists and interpret it as good rapport. And then get drawn deeper in.
Great that you have come out of the other side wiser.
Never had that, but have had a therapist shame me and not disguise her contempt for my limerent tendencies, or rather at the time I had a couple of hopefuls as part of bipolar mania hyper sexuality. Other therapists have been dismissive of ‘crushed’ as a driver of internal dissonance and distress. Much greater understanding is needed, this blog should be required reading!
Limerence/The Flame
I am burnt by a futile fire
Guttered by its own breath,
Consuming nothing but its own heat
Fanned by spectral mirages,
By what will not be.
Yet to extinguish it sparks dread,
No wick, no hope, no flame.
I have never experienced limerence before, but I am deep into it with my current therapist. The experience of being so out of control has been frightening to me. It was a perfect storm of genuine admiration, feelings of friendship and trust, intense eye contact, emotional conversations, deeply felt gratitude, and gradually-noticed physical attraction that went too far, too quickly. I never knew that this could happen — it just didn’t occur to me — but now, I feel I have fallen into a kind of trap. It seems like therapy was designed to produce this effect on me. It genuinely feels like some kind of cosmic connection, although rationally I know that is not the case. There is obviously no hope of reciprocation, and I wouldn’t really want it even if it was possible; I am in a long term relationship that is very important to me. On top of everything else, I feel guilty, disloyal and ashamed — but I feel addicted to my fantasies and can’t seem to stop.
My partner noticed that I was acting strangely and asked me directly if I had feelings for my therapist. I admitted that I did. It felt to me like getting doused with cold water. I hate secrets, but I hate hurting my loved ones too. I am not sure if I will be able to continue therapy, or if I would only be throwing good money after bad, and making my mental health worse. Right now there are no good choices for me. Just wanted to say, if this is happening to you, you’re not alone.
Yeah, that’s a rough one, Limerbeast. It does seem an inevitable risk with a therapist who could be a potential LO.
Hard to know ahead of time, of course. I suppose it would be possible to only seek therapists who aren’t a limerence match (e.g. if heterosexual, seek a same-sex therapist), but then, what if that limits your ability to really gain insight from the relationship (e.g. if the opposite-sex perspective is important for your self-development)?