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How to break your addiction to a person (Howard M. Halpern)

Jesse Martin

August 16, 2012


How to Break Your Addiction to a Person by Howard M. Halpern is an interesting and educational take on love addiction from the perspective of an experienced and renowned psychotherapist. Halpern says that our attachment needs are based on the infant within us that wants to unify itself with its mother.

If, our attachment needs as an infant, somehow, weren't adequately met, we may suffer from Attachment Hunger at a later age. Attachment Hunger is a compulsive need to attach to someone and according to Halpern is the cause of love addiction. Halpern goes as far as to say:

The mother or father to whom you looked to make you feel good, secure, and strong exists in the person with whom you are now involved; therefore, if you can get that person to love you, everything will be okay.

Halpern goes on to say that when we experience withdrawal from this addiction, we go back to that infant mindset, and time itself seems to be distorted. Thus the pain seems to be endless. Halpern shares various techniques on recognizing, breaking and overcoming the addiction.

If you're going through a bad breakup, you're likely to have some form of love addiction. In particular, if your breakup involves an unattainable woman, this book offers some valuable advice. That being said, the Attachment Hunger philosophy - in light of other literature such as A General Theory of Love - seems incomplete. There is for instance no mention of the influence of the later stages of development on your capacity to form healthy relationships.

Check it out on Amazon here.

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