Infatuation or being smitten is the state of being carried away by an unreasoned passion, usually towards another person for whom one has developed strong romantic feelings. Psychologist Frank D. Cox says that infatuation can be distinguished from

romantic love Romance or romantic love is a feeling of love for, or a strong attraction towards another person, and the courtship behaviors undertaken by an individual to express those overall feelings and resultant emotions. The ''Wiley Blackwell Encyc ...

only when looking back on a particular case of being attracted to a person. Infatuation may also develop into a mature love. Goldstein and Brandon describe infatuation as the first stage of a relationship before developing into a mature intimacy. Whereas love is "a warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion to another person", infatuation is "a feeling of foolish or obsessively strong love for, admiration for, or interest in someone or something", a shallower "honeymoon phase" in a relationship. Dr. Ian Kerner, a sex therapist, states that infatuation usually occurs at the start of relationships, is "...usually marked by a sense of excitement and euphoria, and it's often accompanied by

lust Lust is a psychological force producing intense desire for something, or circumstance while already having a significant amount of the desired object. Lust can take any form such as the lust for sexuality (see libido), money, or power. It ...

and a feeling of newness and rapid expansion with a person". Phillips describes how the illusions of infatuations inevitably lead to disappointment when learning the truth about a lover. Adolescents often make people an object of extravagant, short-lived passion or temporary love.

Youth

"It is customary to view young people's dating relationships and first relationships as

puppy love Puppy love, also known as a crush, is an informal term for feelings of romantic love, often felt during childhood and early adolescence. It is an infatuation usually developed by someone's looks and attractiveness at first sight. Such feelings f ...

or infatuation"; and if infatuation is both an early stage in a deepening sequence of

love Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest Interpersonal relationship, interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure. An example of this range of ...

/ attachment, ''and'' at the same time a potential stopping point, it is perhaps no surprise that it is a condition especially prevalent in the first, youthful explorations of the world of relationships. Thus "the first passionate adoration of a youth for a celebrated actress whom he regards as far above him, to whom he scarcely dares lift his bashful eyes" may be seen as part of an "infatuation with celebrity especially perilous with the young".

Admiration Admiration is a social emotion felt by observing people of competence, talent, or skill exceeding standards.Algoe, S. B., & Haidt, J. (2009). Witnessing excellence in action: The ‘other-praising’ emotions of elevation, gratitude, and admirati ...

plays a significant part in this, as "in the case of a schoolgirl crush on a boy or on a male teacher. The girl starts off admiring the teacher ... henmay get hung up on the teacher and follow him around". Then there may be

shame Shame is an unpleasant self-conscious emotion often associated with negative self-evaluation; motivation to quit; and feelings of pain, exposure, distrust, powerlessness, and worthlessness. Definition Shame is a discrete, basic emotion, d ...

at being confronted with the fact that "you've got what's called a crush on him ... Think if someone was hanging around ''you'', pestering and sighing". Of course, "sex may come into this ... with an infatuated schoolgirl or schoolboy" as well, producing the "stricken gaze, a compulsive movement of the throat ... an 'I'm lying down and I don't care if you walk on me, babe', expression" of infatuation. Such a cocktail of emotions "may even falsify the 'erotic sense of reality': when a person in love estimates his partner's virtues he is usually not very realistic ... projection of all his ideals onto the partner's personality". It is this projection that differentiates infatuation from love, according to the spiritual teacher Meher Baba: "In infatuation, the person is a ''passive victim'' of the spell of conceived attraction for the object. In love there is an ''active appreciation'' of the intrinsic worth of the object of love." Distance from the object of infatuation—as with celebrities—can help maintain the infatuated state. A time-honoured cure for the one who "has a ''tendre'' ... infatuated" is to have "thrown them continually together ... by doing so you will cure ... ryou will know that it is not an infatuation".

Types

Three types of infatuation have been identified by Brown: the first type is characterized by being "carried away, without insight or proper evaluative judgement, by blind desire"; the second, closely related, by being "compelled by a desire or craving over which the agent has no control" while "the agent's evaluation ... may well be sound although the craving or love remains unaffected by it"; and the third is that of "the agent who exhibits bad judgement and misvaluation for reasons such as ignorance or recklessness".

In transference

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might ...

, a sign that the method is taking hold is "the initial infatuation to be observed at the beginning of treatment", the beginning of

transference Transference (german: Übertragung) is a phenomenon within psychotherapy in which the "feelings, attitudes, or desires" a person had about one thing are subconsciously projected onto the here-and-now Other. It usually concerns feelings from a ...

. The patient, in

Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts i ...

's words, "develops a special interest in the person of the doctor ... never tires in his home of praising the doctor and of extolling ever new qualities in him". What occurs, "it is usually maintained ... is a sort of false love, a shadow of love", replicating in its course the infatuations of "what is called true love". Some psychoanalysts, however, claim that it is wrong to convince the patient "that their love is an illusion ... that it's not you she loves. Freud was off base when he wrote that. It ''is'' you. Who else could it be?"—thereby taking "the question of what is called true love ... further than it had ever been taken". Conversely, in

countertransference Countertransference is defined as redirection of a psychotherapist's feelings toward a client – or, more generally, as a therapist's emotional entanglement with a client. Early formulations The phenomenon of countertransference (german: G ...

, the therapist may become infatuated with his/her client: "very good-looking ... she was the most gratifying of patients. She made literary allusions and understood the ones he made ... He was dazzled by her, a little in love with her. After two years, the analysis ground down to a horrible halt".

Intellectual infatuations

Infatuations need not only involve people, but can extend to objects, activities, and ideas. "Men are always falling in love with other men ... with their war heroes and sport heroes": with institutions, discourses and

role model A role model is a person whose behaviour, example, or success is or can be emulated by others, especially by younger people. The term ''role model'' is credited to sociologist Robert K. Merton, who hypothesized that individuals compare themselves ...

s. Thus for example

Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, phi ...

's initial unconditional devotion' to Freud's theories and his 'no less unconditional veneration' of Freud's person' was seen at the time by both men as a 'quasi-religious infatuation' to ... a

cult In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. Thi ...

object"; while Freud in turn was "very attracted by Jung's personality", perhaps "saw in Jung an idealized version of himself": a mutual admiration society—"intellectually infatuated with one another". But there are also collective infatuations: "we are all prone to being drawn into ''social phantasy systems''". Thus, for instance, "the recent intellectual infatuation with

structuralism In sociology, anthropology, archaeology, history, philosophy, and linguistics, structuralism is a general theory of culture and methodology that implies that elements of human culture must be understood by way of their relationship to a broader s ...

and

post-structuralism Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critiques ...

" arguably lasted at least until " September 11 ended intellectual infatuation with

postmodernism Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of modern ...

" as a whole. Economic bubbles thrive on collective infatuations of a different kind: "all boom-bust processes contain an element of misunderstanding or misconception", whether it is the "infatuation with ... becoming the latest dot.com billionaire", or the one that followed with

subprime mortgage In finance, subprime lending (also referred to as near-prime, subpar, non-prime, and second-chance lending) is the provision of loans to people in the United States who may have difficulty maintaining the repayment schedule. Historically, subpri ...

s, once " Greenspan had replaced the tech bubble with a housing bubble". As markets "swung virtually overnight from euphoria to fear" in the

credit crunch A credit crunch (also known as a credit squeeze, credit tightening or credit crisis) is a sudden reduction in the general availability of loans (or credit) or a sudden tightening of the conditions required to obtain a loan from banks. A credit cr ...

, even the most hardened market fundamentalist had to concede that such "periodic surges of euphoria and fear are manifestations of deep-seated aspects of human nature"—whether these are enacted in home-room infatuations or upon the global stage.

Literary depictions

Shakespeare's sonnets have been described as a "Poetics for Infatuation"; as being dominated by one theme, and "that theme is infatuation, its initiation, cultivation, and history, together with its peaks of triumph and devastation"—a lengthy exploration of the condition of being "subject to the appropriate disorders that belong to our infatuation ... the condition of infatuation".R. P. Blackmur, J. T Jones, ''Outsider at the Heart of Things'' (1989) p. 242, 246. In Turgenev's '' First Love'', a novella from 1860, 16-year-old Woldemar becomes rapturously infatuated with Zinaida, the beautiful daughter of a princess who lives next to his house. Even though she does spend time with him, his intense infatuation is unrequited and he sinks into depression.

Youth

Types

In transference

Intellectual infatuations

Literary depictions

See also

References

Further reading