1. Francesca Fiore*, Giovanni Maria Ruggiero*, Sandra Sassaroli*
* Studi Cognitivi”, Post-graduate Cognitive Psychotherapy
School, Milano.

2. Background
 Love Addiction is a mental disorder that
recently aroused the interest of
clinicians and researchers.
 It falls into the broader category of the
New Addiction

3. Background
 Romantic love has been conceptualized
as a dynamic structure that may be
 Mature, permits a mature attachment
relationship, and each partner may feel a
sense of increased self-esteem and
wellbeing;
 Immature, creates a maladaptive social
environment ( Acevedo & Aron, 2009) .

4. Background
 Immature love, when:
 permeating one’s daily life,
 involving repeated out-of-control behaviour,
 resulting in negative life consequences, may
be considered
 love addiction.

5. Background
 Some researchers estimate that the
prevalence of love addicted is 10% of
the U.S. population (Fisher, 2006;
Sussman & Ames, 2008;
Timmreck, 2010).
 Love addiction is characterized by
recurrent behaviour that reports of
pleasurable feelings and obsessive
thinking.

6. Background
 These pleasurable feelings and obsessive
thoughts may be described as craving for
continued union with a love object (“true
love”; Fisher,2006).
 These processes are eventually followed
by negative consequences (Sussman &
Ames, 2008).
 A key element of love addiction is the belief
that romantic relations are magically potent
(Peele & Brodsky, 1992).

7. Aim
 The scientific literature on this topic is
insufficient and has seen so many
people suffering from this disorder
 we wondered - what are the
characteristics of people who suffer from
this disease?

8. Aim of study
 This study explored the relationship
between cognitive processes, such as
rumination, anxiety
pathology, control, depression and Love
addiction using a correlational
methodology.
 In addition we tested if there is particular
type of attachment style that causes
love addiction and if cognitive process
moderates these results.

9. Method
 204 non clinical individuals,82% females and 18%
males, participated to this experiment and completed
a battery of questionnaires:
 Attachment Style Questionnaire (ASQ; Feeney, Noller e
Hanrahan,1994; Fossati et al. 2003);
 Love Attitudes Scale (LAS; Hendrick & Hendrick, 1990);
 Anxious Control Questionnaire
(ACQ, Kyrios, 2006);
 State Anxiety Inventory (Spilberger, 1999);
 Ruminative Response Scale (RRS, Nolen-
Hoeksema, Marrow,1991);
 Beck Depression Inventory (Beck, 1996).
For the analysis we used only 117 individuals that have
height scores in love addiction.

10. Results
.73* Anxiety .56*
Dismissing .78*
Love
Addiction Rumination
Attachment
Style
.59*
.49*
.67* Control
Depression
The estimated model of Love Addicted. Please note that standardized
coefficients are presented. For ease of presentation, error terms were
omitted. *p < .05. Fitting index data: (χ2 = 1787.25; df = 678; p < .01; CFI =
.957; NNFI = .956; GFI = .975; AGFI = .978; RMSEA = .027).

11. Discussion
 This is an important finding in the clinical
field that allows to evaluate different
possibility of intervention on the patient
with love addiction.
 The results suggest the presence of the
cognitive process typically of
addiction, such as ruminative process
and depression.

12. Discussion
 It is possible thinking of a specific
approach to use for this patient.
 Limitation study is:
 More female individuals than male.

13.  Thanks for attention!
 f.fiore@studicognitivi.net