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Obsessive love disorder (OLD) is a proposed[by whom?] condition in which one person feels an overwhelming obsessive desire to possess and protect another person, sometimes with an inability to accept failure or rejection. Symptoms include an inability to tolerate any time spent without that person, obsessive fantasies surrounding the person, and spending inordinate amounts of time seeking out, making, or looking at images of that person.[1][2]
An obsessive lover may regard the other person as though they were an object or a possession. Depending on the intensity of their attraction, obsessive lovers may feel entirely unable to restrain themselves from extreme behaviors such as acts of violence or abuse.[3]
The disorder most commonly associated with obsessive love isborderline personality disorder. Other disorders that are most commonly associated with obsessive love includedelusional disorder,obsessive-compulsive disorder, and othercluster B personality disorders.[4]
Sigmund Freud considered that obsessive love might be underpinned by an unconscious feeling of hate for which it overcompensated - thereby explaining the sufferer's feeling of a need to protect the love object.[5] Later analysts saw obsessive love as driven more bynarcissistic need, the preoccupation with the love-object offering defenses against worries and depressive feelings;[6] whileJungians see it as rooted in the projection ofthe inner self onto another person.[7]
Marcel Proust dissected (his own style of) obsessive love inÀ la recherche du temps perdu.[8]
Fatal Attraction shows Alex Forrest's obsessive love for Dan Gallagher after a brief affair.[9]
Bollywood films such asDarr,Anjaam, andDastak each portray the main villains as obsessive lovers.[10]
You, a 2014thriller novel byCaroline Kepnes, portrays obsessive love disorder. The novel was adapted into the first season of theLifetime andNetflix television seriesYou.
