Love addiction (LA), a behavioral addiction, is a controversial concept that is not yet an official diagnosis. It can be defined as an insatiable need to be in love and be considered vital to a romantic partner, according to Maglia et al. (2023). A recently developed measure of LA incorporates the three features of addiction: craving, tolerance, and withdrawal (Costa et al., 2021) Love addicts cannot live without feeling love and they constantly crave it. They build tolerance to feeling loved and will insatiably need to feel more desired by their partner. If love addicts feel unloved or if they are not in a relationship, they may experience withdrawal symptoms like severe mood swings, depression, and irritability.

The purpose of the present correlational study is to examine whether LA is associated with other psychopathologies with which it might overlap. LA may overlap with obsessive compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) since both involve obsessive thought processes and compulsive behaviors. LA might intersect with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) because both involve excessive idealization. Both LA and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) involve emotional dysregulation.

The study administered an anonymous survey with self-report measures of LA, OCPD, NPD, and PTSD on Qualtrics. Participants are being recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk. The current study is still in the data collection stage. Due to the overlapping features of LA with these other disorders, it is being predicted that results may show a positive correlation between love addiction and at least one of the other disorders.

Exploration into this topic is vital to contributing to current understanding of negative mental and emotional states, which harm an individual as well as their relationships. Relationships that love addicts have are filled with their dysfunctional behaviors, such as crippling and constant emotional dependence on their partner.