Dr. Alok Kanuja (Dr. K)

So generally speaking, human beings in terms of, let's say, let's say this is intrusive thoughts.

You know, everyone has some unwanted thoughts.

But if we look at human beings, there is a bell curve.

The people over here have very few intrusive thoughts.

The people here have an average amount of intrusive thoughts.

The people over here.

have a more than average, or let's say greater, greater amount of intrusive thoughts.

And the people over here, this group of people qualifies as OCD, okay?

So I think basically what's going on with limerence is we have people who are over here.

So they have a genetic predisposition for something like OCD.

So they tend to have a more obsessional or intrusive thinking style, but it's not so severe that there is OCD.

Instead, what happens is we have these genetically predisposed people to OCD who then have some kind of attachment injury.

So when you take a kid who won't have OCD, so if they were more intrusive, if they had stronger genetics, maybe they would develop OCD.

But you take a kid who doesn't have OCD but is high on that spectrum, and then you put them in an anxious attachment environment, and those two things combine and limit...

Limerence sort of emerges out of it.

Then there are a couple of other features that I think sort of combine to make this pie of limerence, like this limerence stew.

It's not just OCD and anxious attachment.

There's more to it, okay?

The next thing is a tendency for fantasy as a coping mechanism.

So, for example, if you look at studies on like maladaptive daydreaming.