Limerence therapist, online worldwide
You know it isn't love, not really. But your mind circles them all day, rereads every message, aches at every silence, and you can't switch it off. That's limerence, it has a name, and it's treatable. I'm Shagoon Maurya, a registered counsellor and psychotherapist (ACA Level 2, PACFA), and I work with it.
Limerence is involuntary, obsessive infatuation: intrusive thoughts about a 'limerent object', euphoria at any sign of reciprocation, despair at ambiguity, and a fantasy life that increasingly outcompetes your real one. It can strike inside marriages, at workplaces, over people you barely know, and it thrives on uncertainty.
It's also one of the most shame-soaked things people bring to therapy, which is exactly why so few talk about it. In our sessions there is no judgment, only understanding of the mechanism: limerence is closer to an attachment-and-reward loop than to romance, which is why willpower alone rarely beats it.
How limerence therapy with me works
Understand the mechanism
Why your brain latched on, uncertainty, attachment history and unmet needs, so it stops feeling like madness.
Starve the loop
Practical strategies for the checking, rumination and fantasy that feed the obsession.
Address the roots
What the limerence is standing in for, often aliveness, escape or longing your real life is missing.
Protect what matters
If you're partnered, navigating this without detonating a relationship you value.
You're not broken
Limerence hits thoughtful, self-aware people constantly, and most suffer it in secret. Therapy gives it somewhere to go: a confidential space to defuse the obsession and rebuild investment in your actual life, sometimes alongside relationship counselling if a partnership has been strained.
Limerence feels like destiny. It's actually a loop, and loops can be broken.
Everything you share stays confidential. We start with a free 15-minute consultation, no judgment, ever.
Limerence FAQs
It's a well-described psychological phenomenon, involuntary obsessive infatuation, first named by researcher Dorothy Tennov. Not a formal diagnosis, but very real and very treatable.
Love grows with knowing someone; limerence thrives on uncertainty and fantasy, and often fades when reality intrudes. If it's intrusive, compulsive and distressing, it's likely limerence.
Yes. Many clients are partnered and want exactly that. We work confidentially on breaking the loop and reinvesting in the real relationship.
It varies with how long the pattern has run, but most people feel the obsession loosening within a couple of months of structured work.
Ready to get your mind back?
Book a free, no-obligation 15-minute consultation with Shagoon.
Book your free consult