Limerence Deep Dive (Chapter 1 - I Was Wrong)
Psychology In Seattle Podcast
Kirk Honda
4.6 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 24 November 2025
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/KIRK to get 10% off your first month.
00:00 What is limerence?
08:1 How did Dr. Kirk get here?
22:48 What does the current research and discourse look like?
48:02 An exercise for limerence
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, Deserving listeners, today's episode is the beginning of my deep dive on the topic of |
| 0:08.2 | limerence. Limerence. I can't remember the last time I was this excited to record a deep dive. |
| 0:15.0 | I mean, I always love doing deep dives, but I am so excited to do this deep dive. My name is Dr. Kirk Honda. |
| 0:23.8 | I'm a therapist and I'm a professor. |
| 0:27.4 | And by the way, I have a cold. |
| 0:29.7 | And normally I would wait until I recover to record a deep dive like this, |
| 0:35.5 | but I am nerding out so hard on this topic, I can't wait |
| 0:40.0 | to talk about it. So let's get into it. Now, I want to start with my definition, which is close to |
| 0:47.6 | the standard definition of limerence, because many of you might not even know what limerence is. |
| 0:53.8 | So limerence is an intense, |
| 0:57.3 | obsessive, involuntary, romantic infatuation when reciprocation is absent or uncertain. |
| 1:05.4 | So let's drill down into this a little bit. For some of you, you might be thinking, |
| 1:09.9 | well, that just sounds like a crush, but it is not a crush you, you might be thinking, well, that just sounds like a crush, |
| 1:12.1 | but it is not a crush. Or you might be thinking, well, isn't that just what it's like to be |
| 1:16.7 | infatuated with someone? It is related, but it is not that. And I'm going to spend a lot of time |
| 1:22.6 | going into those distinctions. But let's drill down on this definition for a second. So it is an intense, |
| 1:29.8 | obsessive, involuntary, romantic infatuation when reciprocation is absent or uncertain. So let's break |
| 1:37.1 | it down. Intense, meaning it's severe, it's all consuming. The word acute might be applied here, meaning that for people when they are |
| 1:48.3 | falling in love might initially feel that acute obsessiveness in the first week or month or two. |
| 1:56.7 | Well, this feeling of limerance has elements of that or all of that that lasts for weeks, |
| 2:04.8 | months, years. So it's intense, severe, all-consuming. It's also obsessive, meaning that the |
| 2:12.7 | individual in this state experiences intrusive thoughts, fixation, rumination, compulsive thoughts, compulsive |
... |
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