Signs and Characteristics of Love Addiction:
By Kevin Leapley, MA, LPC, CSAT on Sunday, May 31st, 2015 in Sexual Addiction. No Comments
Love Addiction consists of three components: Romance, Relationship and Sexual Addiction.
Signs and Characteristics of Love Addiction:
- Lack of nurturing and attention when young
- Feeling isolated, detached from parents and family
- Compartmentalization of relationships from other areas of life
- Outer facade of “having it all together” to hide internal disintegration
- Mistake intensity for intimacy (drama driven relationships)
- Hidden Pain
- Seek to avoid rejection and abandonment at any cost
- Afraid to trust anyone in a relationship
- Inner rage over lack of nurturing, early abandonment
- Depressed
- Highly manipulative and controlling of others
- Perceive attraction, attachment, and sex as basic human needs, on a par with food and water
- Sense of worthlessness without a relationship or partner
- Feelings that a relationship makes one whole, or more of a man or woman
- Escalating tolerance for high-risk behavior
- Intense need to control self, others, circumstances
- Presence of other addictive or compulsive problems
- Insatiable appetite in area of difficulty (sex, love or attachment / need.)
- Using others, sex & relationships to alter mood or relieve emotional pain
- Continual questioning of values and lifestyle
- Driven, desperate, frantic personality
- Confusion of sexual attraction with love
- Tendency to trade sexual activity for “love” or attachment
- Existence of a secret “double life”
- Refusal to acknowledge existence of problem
- Defining out-of-control behavior as normal
- Defining “wants” as “needs”
- Tendency to leave one relationship for another. (Inability to be without a relationship.)
- Attempts to replace lost relationships with a new one
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Kevin Leapley, MA, LPC, CSAT
Sexual Addiction Therapist at Front Range Counseling Center
Kevin Leapley specializes in both marriage counseling and sexual addiction therapy for men. Kevin has received specialized training by Dr. Patrick Carnes and obtained his CSAT (Certified Sexual Addiction Therapist). Kevin has also received extensive training in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and is a certified Emotionally Focused Therapist .
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