Love Addiction & Transactional Analysis

To the unconscious mind, love addiction makes perfect sense. – Brenda Schaeffer

Adopted as a child into a family that gave him little love or emotional support, Cary had suffered sexual, emotional, and physical abuse. As a result, he vowed he would never get close to anyone, for to do so was too dangerous—or so his childhood experiences had led him to believe.

But as a young adult, Cary struggled with his human need to bond with others, a need that had been thwarted by his self-protective promise. The primary way Cary felt able to be close to another was through sex and romance. His relationships were intense, often shallow, sexually motivated, and short-lived. Again and again, Cary complained of a sense of emptiness and of a longing to be close to someone for whom he cared and who cared for him.  And he blamed the love object as the source of his problem.  Little did he know that it was his own life experience and self-promise that thwarted his love relationships.

To be sure, amorous love beautifully complements true love in mature people. But sadly, for many, such love or desire often is nothing more than an attempt to relieve the fear of aloneness, to try to fill a void, or confirm a self-promise. In that sense, such love is addictive.

 Love addiction can spring from an unconscious search to meet unfulfilled childhood needs and to reinforce powerful childhood beliefs. Each of us acts out a drama that seeks to answer the questions, “Who am I?” “Who are these others?” “How do I get what I need in life?” The drama is not played out in the conscious mind, yet it affects our conscious thoughts, emotions, choices, and behavior. The drama stars myths, roles, and restrictions designed by us in childhood to address early survival needs. A self-promise like Cary’s—made in a moment of emotional pain—may rule our behavior. In childhood, we assessed the world as best we could to determine what to do or not do to ensure comfort and survival. And for some—like Cary—that meant limiting our capacity for emotional intimacy, autonomy, and spontaneity.

All of us believe we know who we are. Yet we are not really conscious of all we are. What one knows about oneself is but the tip of the iceberg. One’s life experience is recorded in the body’s nervous system. From early experiences, good and bad, we combine our perceptions into logical beliefs on which we make adult decisions. Those include, of course, decisions—conscious or unconscious—about love.

When I work with individuals who are struggling to find true love, or with couples whose trust has been violated or are feeling dissatisfied in their relationships, I want to know their individual story, their life script that, like Cary, determines who they love and how they love and what needs to change within to have what they say they want. And Transactional Analysis, a theory of personality and a method of change, is one of the best theories to help us untangle the confusion we feel when we want healthy relationships but find ourselves mired in relationships filled with confusion, pain, and drama.

In our lifetimes, we will use but a small portion of our physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual potentials, all of which play a role in true love. Why do we limit ourselves so? And how does this limitation relate to love? The answers to these questions can be helpful to our understanding the roots of love addiction and are some of the topics I will cover in my USATAA workshop on December 4th.

2 CE Credits available from APA (psychologists) or NBCC (professional counselors) with a $10 fee. Contact adam@seinstitute.com prior to the workshop.

Join me December 4th, 2021 for a two-hour workshop I will be presenting for USATAA that will help answer these questions and more. CEU credits may be available.  For more information and to register, click here