Healing Limerence: How Internal Family Systems Can Help
Limerence is more than a crush. It’s a powerful psychological state where thoughts, fantasies, and emotions about another person take on a life of their own. People who experience limerence often describe it as both intoxicating and exhausting.
Unlike love, which deepens through mutual understanding and shared reality, limerence thrives on intensity, uncertainty, and imagination. More often than not, the person at the other end of imagination is either unavailable or un-interested in you. It can feel overwhelming, even when you know it doesn’t quite make sense. And because it often lives more in the mind than in the relationship itself, it can leave you caught between hope, shame, and confusion.
What Limerence Is, and What It Is Not
What Limerence is:
A state of obsessive or intrusive thinking about another person, often called the limerent object.
A cycle of emotional highs (when you imagine or receive attention) and lows (when you don’t).
A strong pull toward fantasy or idealisation, where the other person seems perfect or destined.
What Limerence is not:
It is not the steady, mutual growth of love, which is built on reciprocity and trust.
It is not simple attraction or admiration, which can exist without consuming your inner world.
It is not “crazy” or shameful—though many people fear it means something is wrong with them.
The Impact of Limerence
Living with limerence is painful and disruptive. You may:
Lose focus at work or study because your mind obsessively loops back to the person.
Feel anxious or restless waiting for a message or small sign of attention.
Struggle with guilt or shame if you are already in another relationship.
Notice exhaustion from the emotional highs and lows.
Feel disconnected from yourself, as though part of you is trapped in obsession.
For some, limerence is short-lived. For others, it becomes a repeating pattern that feels impossible to break. What makes it painful isn’t only the attachment to someone else, but the inner conflict it stirs up. You are likely dealing with parts of you pulled in opposite directions, all fighting for control.
How IFS Therapy Helps Untangle Limerence
Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy views the mind as a system of parts. Each part carrying emotions, needs, and protective strategies. In limerence, several parts are often active at once:
Longing parts may seek connection, approval, or the feeling of being chosen.
Fantasy parts may protect you from loneliness by offering imagined closeness.
Critical or shaming parts may scold you for feeling this way.
Protective parts might numb or distract you when the intensity becomes overwhelming.
Through IFS, you learn to turn toward these parts with curiosity and compassion, rather than judgment. This helps reduce the grip of limerence by uncovering what your system is really asking for: belonging, safety, or self-worth.
IFS does not aim to “eliminate” limerence. Instead, it helps you:
Befriend the parts caught in the cycle of thinking so much about the other person
Discover healthier ways to meet the true needs of the parts that are longing for connection
Strengthen your Self-energy so you feel grounded and steady
Build compassion for yourself, instead of judgment
Through this process, limerence becomes less of a trap and more of an opening into self-understanding.
When the Self (the calm, grounded core of who you really are) connects with that younger part, something shifts. The need for external validation softens, and the obsessive pull of limerence loosens its hold.
If You Need Help With Limerence
If limerence is affecting your life, know that you don’t have to face it alone. Therapy can help untangle the inner dynamics and bring calm. With IFS, what feels like obsession often reveals itself as a path toward deeper clarity and healing.
Book a free 20 minute connection call to explore how IFS therapy might support you.
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