I Love You... Madly

Description of a clinical picture denoted “love addiction”, for lack of a better name. The author describes it as a dependency in the pathological sense: the subject, who seems to be alienated from the object of his desire, refuses to recognize the fact that the love object is a separate person. Instead, he uses the love object as a pretext for a narcissistic obsession. It is therefore not a case of alienation from the love object. Love addiction differs from erotomania, another love-related disorder, as described by De Clérambault. It could be a deviant form of passion and of the spiritual quest presumed to accompany the passionate condition.