Limerence through a depth
psychological lens.

Here is where depth psychology
offers something that the simple
advice to "cut ties and move on"
cannot provide.

Understanding the mechanics of
projection can provide some insight
on the disproportionate emotional
charge of limerence.

Projection is one of several
psychological processes that may
contribute to limerence.
It is one mechanism through which
limerence may become psychically
amplified.

If limerence is strongly sustained by
projection, one cannot shake it off
simply by trying to let go of the person.

The work involves gradually
withdrawing from that person what
our psyche has projected onto them.
In other words, what we are asking
them to carry for us.

Some psychological sources may list
limerence as the outcome of low
self-esteem, attachment ruptures in
early childhood, neglect.
These explanations may explain
predisposing conditions.
But they do not explain the
psychological mechanism that takes
place.

An impoverished self-image may
increase vulnerability to limerence
not simple because a person "needs
validation," but because qualities
that cannot be recognized or valued
within the self may be more readily
perceived in another.

The poorer our conscious
estimation of ourselves, the more
brilliant our own unlived potential
may appear when we encounter it
in someone else.
The less we recognize our own
unlived qualities, the more
extraordinary they may appear
when encountered in someone else.
As psychoanalysis also posits, love
can become a form of narcissistic
dependence; the other endows us with
the value and worth we may struggle
to experience on our own, providing
a kind of vicarious self-esteem.
Projection may intensify this dynamic.
The more value we unconsciously
locate in the other, the more valuable
we may feel by being desired or chosen
by them.

The issue is not that we admire the
other, nor that the other occupies
an important place in our lives.
But the psychic space they occupy
within our internal landscape.

What can help:

- Identifying the wounds, needs or relational
dynamics that limerence may reactivate.
-Distinguishing the real person from the mental
idealization we have built around them.
-Identifying what the other person has come
to embody for us, such as qualities, value,
possibilities, or unlived aspects of ourselves.
- Gradually withdrawing these projections and
reclaiming what belongs to our own psyche.
- Developing inner self-esteem and a sense
of security that rely less on the other person's
desire, attention, or validation.
- Reducing behaviors that actively fuel the fixation,
such as rumination, fantasizing, searching for signs,
monitoring social media, and re-reading
past exchanges.
- Reinvesting this psychic energy into one's own
life, relationships, desires, and personal growth.

It can be helpful to reach out to a mental health
professional when thoughts become intrusive, emotional
suffering persists despite intellectual clarity,
the same relational pattern continues to repeat,
or one's sense of self-worth becomes heavily dependent
on a single person.

womenofdepthpsychology
art: Henry Daubrez - Hidden in plain sight