Limerence Deep Dive (Chapter 3 - Signs and Disorder Justification)
Psychology In Seattle Podcast
Kirk Honda
4.6 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 26 November 2025
⏱️ 30 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 Intro
05:37 The signs of experiencing limerence
18:22 The functional impact
28:53 How does limerence disrupt life?
46:43 How is it different from a crush?
1:06:43 Is it possible to have a healthy relationship?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, deserving listeners, this is Chapter 3 in my deep dive on Limerance. My name is Dr. Kirk Honda. |
| 0:05.5 | I'm a therapist and a professor. I still have a cold. I hope it's not too bothers them. |
| 0:11.1 | I'm trying to have the microphone at a particular distance. I'm trying to EQ things so that it's not too annoying. |
| 0:20.2 | Hopefully it's okay. So in the interim between chapter |
| 0:25.0 | two and chapter three, I nerded out even further into limerence. I've been really hung up on the |
| 0:32.2 | question as to what is the difference between people that have normal infatuation at the beginning of a crush |
| 0:41.0 | or relationship or something, and those who develop what I would call pathological limerence? |
| 0:46.2 | What is that difference? |
| 0:47.9 | Because most people and experts included would agree that even in healthy or normal infatuation falling in love, |
| 0:57.8 | you will have these intrusive thoughts, these infatuations, an obsessive drive towards another |
| 1:05.1 | person. So what is it that differentiates between people that have that normal infatuation that can cause |
| 1:13.0 | all kind of problems, of course, but it can also bond people, drive people towards each other? |
| 1:18.2 | What's the difference between that and people who develop pathological limerence? |
| 1:22.6 | Because a lot of experts will say that it's both limerence. |
| 1:27.1 | I'm not calling normal infatuation limerance |
| 1:29.7 | because I'm trying to section off the word limerance for pathology because I think it's more |
| 1:36.1 | helpful. So I was really mulling this question over because I thought that I had a satisfactory answer to that. I had developed a bit of a |
| 1:48.9 | theory as to why some people develop pathological limerance. It was mainly based on the |
| 1:56.5 | qualitative responses on the survey. But I gave it some more thought and I landed on something. I said, |
| 2:02.4 | oh my God, am I having another eureka moment? And I, you know, I don't want to use the word eureka to |
| 2:09.5 | elevate myself, but it feels that way to me. And I don't hear other experts using this kind of |
| 2:16.6 | language, which I don't know if I just haven't come across it or if it's such a new topic that there just isn't a lot of investigation or even attempt to have a unifying theory of the cause of limerence. |
... |
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