Health Psychology Research / HPR / Volume 11 / Issue 1 / DOI: 10.52965/​001c.70218
GENERAL

Love Addiction - Current Diagnostic and Therapeutic Paradigms in   Clinical Psychology. 

Marilena Giovanna Maglia1,2* Ines Lanzafame1,2 Maria C Quattropani1,2 Pasquale Caponnetto1,2
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1 DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES, SECTION OF PSYCHOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF CATANIA, 95124 CATANIA, ITALY
2 CENTER OF EXCELLENCE FOR THE ACCELERATION OF HARM REDUCTION (COEHAR), UNIVERSITY OF CATANIA, 95123 CATANIA, ITALY
Published: 29 April 2023
© 2023 by the Author(s). Licensee Health Psychology Research, USA. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
Abstract

Background

We have investigated and analyzed the latest research on love addiction in the fields of clinical psychology, diagnosis, psychotherapy and treatment.

Methods

From 30 November 2021 to July 2022 a review was conducted aimed at identifying the current diagnostic paradigms associated with this new behavioral dependence, investigating in depth what has not yet emerged, searching for strong and weak correlations with related theoretical constructs, comorbidities, investigate which evaluation scales are currently used and outline a guiding design that allows you to move between current scientific discoveries, searching for relevant studies in the databases PubMed, National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), PsycINFO, MDPI, APA, ScienceDirect, and ReserchGate.

Results

We identified a total of 102 unique articles. Among these, 22 full-text articles were assessed for eligibility and 5 of these met the eligibility criteria and were, therefore, included in the final systematic review.

Conclusions

Group psychotherapy has proved to be a valid alternative, in fact the scientific landscape suggests that most group therapies are successful because these dynamics involve the reward and attachment systems in the brain in most subjects. Although there is currently no official classification for this type of addiction, the continuing interests of clinical psychology open up new scenarios for achieving greater psychophysical well-being.

Keywords
Love addiction
Love disorder
Emotional dependence
New addiction
Romantic Obsession
Maladaptive romantic love
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Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
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Health Psychology Research, Electronic ISSN: 2420-8124 Published by Health Psychology Research