Hi, thank you for joining the Empowered Relationship Podcast, your relationship guide. I’m your host, Dr. Jessica Higgins, licensed psychologist and relationship coach.
In today’s interview we are going to be talking with Helen Mia Harris, looking at how to deal with love addiction. Before we get started, I wanna invite you to take a deep breath in… And a deep breath out. Perhaps bringing yourself more fully to this moment, with your awareness and your presence; as you bring your focus more to this moment and yourself and your experience, you have much more capacity to understand what’s going on for you internally, in your internal world, as well as how you’re responding to your significant other and relationship.
As we turn towards our experience more fully, we have an opportunity to learn more deeply, and with this learning, we grow and develop ourselves, and also can increase the development of our relationship as we co-create with our significant other… And also along the way, we might recognize areas of past pain, wounding and trauma that is looking to be healed and to be processed and completed, in the sense of that drive to metabolize, and again, bring that healing into place.
So often we repress, suppress and block, either because it is too overwhelming or it is too difficult to face, or we just find it too painful… And yet, we might notice our limitation, or our restriction as we hold that trauma, a certain aspect of ourselves, or a certain place in our bodies that we hold that. And life, relationship, and even our experience will reflect that back to us. And this can be an invitation for healing, for resolution.
The conversations on the Empowered Relationship Podcast are intended to support you in your journey of healing, growing, developing, as it relates to relationship. So often relationship is a mirror and a teacher for us, and we get to look at areas, again, that perhaps we haven’t been looking at or are under-developed.
If you would like access to today’s show notes, you can visit DrJessicaHiggins.com, click on Podcast there in the top navigation bar, and you’ll find the most recent episodes at the top. And again, today’s episode is 251, “How to deal with love addiction”, an interview with Helen Mia Harris. Let’s get started in today’s interview.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Helen Mia Harris is the creator of the Love Addiction, Codependency, and Heartbreak Recovery Program. Several years ago, Helen experienced first-hand this affliction of the heart, when we love too much and experienced the grief-like symptoms of unrequited love, loss, and emotional trauma ,which inspired her to create the program. Love addiction is a phenomenon that is recognized as a pervasive and complex problem. This can lead to an overwhelming experience of love withdrawal, lovesickness, depression, and anxiety.
Helen, thank you for joining us today.
Helen Mia Harris: Thank you, yes.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes, and we’re gonna be talking about the topic of love addiction, which you really work on… What got you interested in this topic to begin with?
Helen Mia Harris: I’ll start with my own personal experience. I think that was the main thing that interested me in the whole idea of love addiction and codependency. In the late ’80s I had an experience which in many ways was one of the most overwhelming experiences that I’ve ever had. At this stage, by the way, I didn’t have any idea that it was called addictive loving or love addiction, and I really believed at the time that I wouldn’t survive. I felt as if I had no oxygen, I felt that I wasn’t able to survive without the man that I deeply loved… And it had very much to do with unrequited love. In other words, it was me that felt that, and all the vulnerability and everything that goes with it, but he didn’t feel that same equilibrium.
At this particular time I was working in a women’s prison in Australia, and many of the women there had committed crimes, sometimes of passion, often towards their partners, and were in unhealthy and codependent and toxic relationships.
I came across a book called “Love and addiction”, and it was written by Stanton Peele and Archie Brodsky. And I suppose in many ways this was the closest I could get to understanding what was happening to me… And they speak in the book whereby if we have a propensity for psychological insecurity and anxiety, we look for our fix in another, as if love and drugs are a panacea against anxious attachment and extreme emptiness.
What helped me was to understand everything I could about love addiction and the emotional trauma that’s linked to the symptoms of love addiction. And it really was at the time as if I knew that if I could understand and identify and research everything about love addiction, this was the only thing that I could really relate to. And I just want to read just a really very short paragraph from Stanton Peele’s book, “Love and addiction.” He writes:
“When a person goes to another with the aim of filling a void in themselves, the relationship quickly becomes the center of his/her life. It offers them the solace that contrasts sharply with whatever they find everywhere else. So they return to it more and more, until they need it to get through each day. This is when it becomes an addiction, no different from a drug.”
That’s taken from page 73 in Stanton Peele’s “Love and addiction”, which was published in 1975. So I hope that gives you a little of what inspired me to create the love addiction and codependency program, but also then I go on to becoming a couples therapist and working with the love relationship. So that’s a little about me anyway.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: I appreciate that. And where are you located right now?
Helen Mia Harris: I’m in Sevenoaks in Kent, in the U.K. I did mention Australia – yes, I used to live in Australia, because my parents lived there, so I spent quite a lot of time in Australia. But then in 1989, because of what happened to me, I came back to the U.K, and that’s when a lot of my research was happening over in Australia. But then I came back to the U.K, and then went home to do some studying at the C.G. Jung Institute in Küsnacht, and also the Tavistock and Portman center over here in Britain… But most of all, because I also did a degree in film and theater, [unintelligible 00:09:28.05] and so all of the studies that I did and the films that I studied and theater were all around love and obsession, and love addiction, and melancholia and loss. So I’ve dedicated — well, I’ve just given my whole life to it, really.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: It sounds like it. And so often I find that through our own personal journey we encounter a specific area to do a deeper professional dive, that then also is helping other people as we also are helping ourselves, and it sounds like that is something you experienced, to some degree.
And in this vantage point where you are, and having devoted so much of your life’s professional work to this topic, how are you looking at love addiction now? Is it pretty much the same, that we start to use this external source to validate or to access some level of love, and filling that internal void or internal emptiness? Is that how you’re viewing it?
Helen Mia Harris: Yes. Well, from my own experience it was about understanding everything I could, and the research gave me a sense of purpose and understanding, particularly the emptiness that goes with love addiction and codependency… But it also I think is about autonomy, one’s own self-identity, which I know is the most difficult thing to do, or to say to many that are in the middle of this, where I was in the mid-’80s… You know, to start speaking about self-help and self-worth and identity – I didn’t believe that that was helping people, because they didn’t have the compass to understand and then navigate these overwhelming emotions and behaviors and thoughts.
For myself, it’s been about my own fulfillment, my own creative fulfillment and research, and I think that’s allowed me to find a way through it, because without which – as I say in my recovery program – many want to just hide underneath a duvet and really feel that they can’t survive without the other. And when I go into some of the questions that you’re going to be asking me today, it will become absolutely clear some of the symptoms of this and what it can do to people and where it can lead them.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: So before we go into a little bit more of the description, I’m wondering if you can give a little bit of insight into how this relates to attachment… Because so often — I don’t know if you’ve looked at any of Susan Johnson’s work or the EFT, but there’s a real attention to helping the couple. But in this case, sometimes the person is not in relationship (this unrequited love). Is there anything you wanna say now, or would you like to reserve that till later, to talk about attachment and how that fits in?
Helen Mia Harris: No, I think that that’s a really pertinent question. My entire work is based on the work of Dr. Susan Johnson. I truly believe, and it happens on a daily basis, that couples feel insecure, unloved, unwanted, rebuffed when the emotional attachment and secure attachment bond between the couple where the equilibrium isn’t quite balanced… So the one that might withdraw and emotionally shut down – it becomes quite a punishing thing towards the other, who is screaming out for “I don’t feel you are emotionally responding to me.” And the attachment styles – I do work a lot with anxious, [unintelligible 00:13:50.16] avoidant, dismissive attachment styles, and once you begin to work with those attachment styles with the couple and get that equilibrium or get them in sync with one another to build on the emotional foundation, the security in the relationship, I think the couple will survive and go on to have a really thriving and enriching relationship.
Now, with the love addiction, many of them actually are in relationships, but the other person, the withdrawn/avoidant – and I’ll be coming to that a little bit more – completely refuses to relate to the other and join them in their secure attachment, so they become emotionally responsive. In fact, it’s one of the main reasons why people become love — I hate the word “addicts”, Jessica, I’m sorry, but unfortunately for this interview I’m going to have to use it… But the person that’s a love addict will often choose somebody emotionally unavailable, avoidant and dismissive. So that’s very important, I think.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: So there is a high correlation perhaps to someone that is prone to unrequited love, limerence, love addiction, to anxious attachment?
Helen Mia Harris: Absolutely, yes. The person that has a propensity towards love addiction will always be an anxious attachment person, if we were looking at the relationship as far as what Susan Johnson speaks about… You know, they’re often in a relationship with somebody, and that’s where it all begins, even if they might have been very happy at the beginning… But it all begins to become very inflammable when there is a lack of emotional responsiveness between the couple.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: It kind of reminds me, Helen – in cognitive behavioral therapy back in undergrad and maybe grad school, that the intermittent reinforcing is stronger than any other type of reinforcement. So when you’re getting potentially little signs of affirmation, validation, engagement, even not within the context of a relationship, and someone’s seeking and yearning and longing for that validation, and that it’s a little drop in the bucket but it means so, so much, so we become that much more attached to this external form… But as you said, the tendencies of that anxious attachment – it’s this constant checking, “Are we good? Are you there? How do you feel about me?” and needing that for feeling a sense of worth.
Helen Mia Harris: Yes, yes. A good analyst or therapist is a well-polished mirror. I think that is so true. It has something to do with the mirroring. If people feel known and validated and understood and present, that you’re present with them – that’s everything. The person with the propensity towards love addiction – there is no mirror, and it sends them quite into highly traumatic states.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Great. Okay, so let’s come back to love addiction. Is there anything you wanna say in the way of what love addiction is, or other ways to describe love addiction?
Helen Mia Harris: Love addiction is a condition whereby individuals often fall in love with someone who fails to return their love and affection. More often than not, the love addict will be attracted to somebody who was emotionally unavailable, or someone who will neglect the relationship or show no interest. It’s the human behaviors in which people become addicted to the feeling – and this hasn’t been looked at so much; it’s about being addicted to the feeling of being in love, and it is often triggered by someone who they may hold in high esteem, showing signs of kindness and initial interest.
I think that’s very key, because often if somebody shows kindness and interest, and that well-polished mirror that I was speaking about before, it triggers something in the person, and I think it has something to do with that feeling of unlovability is immediately mirrored, in some way, so they kind of want it.
Another “What is love addiction?” is having a mutual crush, infatuation or falling in love. But I think that this is a grey area; a crush and an infatuation isn’t the same as love addiction. I’ve been asked that quite a lot… So it’s very different. Although this is experienced as an intense sense of euphoria, a disconnection, a yearning desire for the beloved, this passionate feeling induces the hope for a long and happy future with someone they care about and feel love for… But the propensity for it to become love addiction is when it turns into a need, rather than a want. Or it’s an insatiable kind of hunger for something.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Okay. So the difference between that first stage of bonding that is highly fueled by the neurochemicals, and the passion, and the longing and the yearning, like you’re describing that can be that initial bonding is very different than love addiction. One of the big determinants here is the difference between the need – “I need it for my sense of well-being, or worthiness, or lovability” versus “I really would love to share a relationship” and a real preference.
Helen Mia Harris: Yes, exactly. Well, it’s a need to survive when it gets into the critical stages. But the person who’s got the propensity towards love addiction is dependent on and enmeshed with and compulsively focused on taking care of another person, which can be described as co-dependency. And that’s I think a feature of love addiction, to desperately hold on to them and hope that they will not leave, or will someday reciprocate their love. So the rescuer or the enabler will then often do this to hold tighter.
Dr. Susan Johnson’s name of the book “Hold me tight” – they’re doing it to hold on to the person tighter, for fear that they will leave… But they get them to be quite dependent on them, in many ways.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: And in some cases there might even be the belief that “If I’m doing all of this and caring for you, then I’m increasing the value to you, or I’m earning my worth with you.”
Helen Mia Harris: Exactly, yes. That’s a very good way of putting it, yeah.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Wonderful. I appreciate you laying out — and I know that we’re not gonna do the whole topic justice on a short podcast… But for people listening that are recognizing this love addiction and what you’re describing, are there signs that they might be able to relate to, if you can help paint that picture for us?
Helen Mia Harris: Yes. Being in love – and this is probably the main sign – is highly acquainted with being in emotional pain. So if they feel this extreme emotional pain, with all the endorphins and dopamine and serotonin and the euphoric rush that’s going on, they have a sense that that means that they are deeply in love. It can be experienced as the most intolerable pain and heartache.
Now, other ways to answer your question, Jessica, to describe love addiction would be obsessive love, in a hypothetical state in which one person feels an overwhelming, obsessive desire to possess another person towards whom they feel a strong attraction, with an inability to accept failure and rejection. And I’ll just kind of really quickly go through these as almost two worlds. This comes from all the research that I’ve done about it. Fixated love is another way to describe love addiction, when one person becomes obsessed and attached to the beloved, particularly if their love is not reciprocated…
Blind love is another way of blindly besotted by the belove… An inability to see reality whereby the other may not have those mutual feelings… And in my research I’ve acquainted this to being crazy in love, which can then lead to love sickness, and… Just to kind of shorten this, but there’s passionate love, unrequited love, hungry love, erotomania – and that’s a very interesting one.
In erotomania, it’s when the person that has a propensity towards this addictive loving really believes a stranger or someone famous or through the media is in love with them. So they actually have these feelings with somebody that they’ve never even met. And that has a lot to do with projection and identification with the other. They believe that this person is their soulmate, and that’s how powerful these feelings are.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: And when you’re talking about the connection with pain, would you be able to describe that a little bit more? Because one of the things that I’m thinking is the risk of potentially not it coming back, or the unrequited or lack of response – is that where the pain starts to get activated?
Helen Mia Harris: Yes, it gets activated when it comes back to what you were saying before, Jessica, about this lack of emotional responsiveness. It gets activated where the person with this propensity remember — I believe they’ve got antennae; they’re hypervigilant. They’re reading every emotional cue, and they can sense that that person is there, present, or not there. Or preoccupied is another one, which is one of the attachment styles… But the moment that they sense that the person isn’t present with them or isn’t preoccupied with them, or is more preoccupied with being a musician, or their work, or their writing, or whatever it might be, that’s when the emotional pain and trauma becomes heightened. And then all the endorphins, and [unintelligible 00:26:26.28] and all the chemicals that go with this then become triggered into fight, flight or freeze… And then of course, once the person of addiction, the person that’s experiencing the projection feels this – they then feel engulfed and pressured and overwhelmed, and will reject the person more, sometimes literally just cutting them off, which then will drive the person who’s got this propensity towards love addiction into quite a demoralized, crazy state.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Thank you for bringing up the trauma. How does trauma fit in here? You’re helping us with some of the description of the nervous system, and how this is getting activated in these dynamics… Can you say anything else around the trauma symptoms, with this experience of love addiction?
Helen Mia Harris: Well, in the research that I’ve done and in my program I’m opening up the word “trauma” to go underneath it slightly. Of course, it’s trauma, but I look at John Bowlby’s four or five stages of grief, and the love withdrawal trauma that goes with love addiction – it is moving the person into quite highly hysterical states, whereby there is no control at all… But it does have a lot to do with the chemicals in the fight, flight and freeze that are being triggered. But then when we get into the acute stages of grief that John Bowlby speaks about, which begins with disorientation, disorganization, and so the person that’s bereaved – it really does feel as if a part of themselves has been amputated when they’ve lost the beloved. It really is the same (exactly) experience as a morbid grief even that one can get into, especially in the love withdrawal stage. I don’t want to unequivocally say that, because I’m going to say something a little later… But in the love withdrawal stage it’s as if on some level there is still this hope the person of addiction will come back. That’s why when you mentioned before about the signs of addiction, it would be constant texting.
I’ve known some people that have got this infection of the heart, which is a better way to put it… Sometimes they send hundreds of texts a day, hundreds of emails, waiting for the person of addiction to call or make contact… Sometimes taking time off work, staying at home in absolute hope, and praying that they will contact them. But of course, often they don’t. So they’re getting lower and lower. And the trauma, complex trauma, is then heightened, whereby the person in extreme cases that I’ve worked with, the first thing that I will tell someone to do is go to see a doctor GP, because they really do need something to calm them. I’m not advocating that, but I think it’s the most important thing, even before they do my program, I think.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Wonderful. So I believe on this show the four stages has been mentioned by Bowlby, but for listeners who are not familiar, would you be willing to name that shortly?
Helen Mia Harris: You mean the four stages of grief?
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes.
Helen Mia Harris: It’s disorientation, to begin with. So the person might then realize that the person of addiction no longer wants them, is completely unavailable, or even something like switching the phone. So it’s complete disorientation, disorganization. Then we come into rage and anger. [unintelligible 00:31:09.29] talks about something quite similar in her four stages of love…
And then the next one is acceptance. That’s what I’m doing in my recovery program – beginning to accept. Because I have a workbook in the program that works through these stages of grief, and get them to work themselves through these stages. That’s why it’s a workbook, so that they can actually write with their own pens, rather than doing it on the computer, in their own process, to move through these stages of grief, to explain what all these acute stages are like.
And it’s John Bowlby that’s spoken about this, it’s another writer called — I can’t remember his name, but he wrote a book called “Love sickness.” I think it’s Frank Tallis. And in this he speaks a lot about love withdrawal and love sickness, and more complex and morbid grief… Because in some of my research I’ve acquainted it with some of the English literature as like Wuthering Heights, or Madame Bovary, or [unintelligible 00:32:33.26] and all of this. So I use a lot of literature in my recovery program to visit some of these either myths or stories in the classics, that somehow I think make people feel really less alone, and it really helps them to orientate themselves into this world that they find themselves in, as I was in the mid-’80s. And if it wasn’t for Stanton Peele’s book at the time, I wouldn’t have known where to begin with it all.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: So how about we go into limerence? What is limerence in love addiction?
Helen Mia Harris: In order to explain something about limerence, I’m going to read something, and I think it says everything… Dorothy Tennov, who in 1979 has suggested that the only cure for being in love is getting indisputable evidence that the target of one’s love is not “interested”. I’ll explain this a little bit more.
What I’m going to explain then is that she’s describing that once the person that is — because limerence is a feature and a symptom of love addiction. But once the person gets indisputable evidence that the person is not interested – and I find this interesting – there’s just something that just clicks in the person and doesn’t pursue it.
For instance, a woman may have a deep sense of a crush, or this infliction with somebody that she’s met, and so she continues to perhaps get to know this particular man. I’m just giving you an example. But then she might find out that he’s married, or something like that. Or he tells her that; along with this indisputable evidence, “I’m sorry, I can’t do this with you. I’m married.” And that can break the spell, often. It’s the hump that keeps it going. But to break the spell of limerence, Dorothy Tennov talks about this unequivocal evidence. Can I explain some of the symptoms of limerence?
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes, please.
Helen Mia Harris: Constant fantasizing, sexual or not, that one day they will be with the person of addiction. An intense – and this is a key thing – fear of rejection; an ongoing desire and hope of reciprocation. Chronic shyness, paralysis, socially awkward with the person of addiction. It’s as if their vulnerability and their sense of being actually with the person of addiction is rendering them completely exposed and naked, so they become paralyzed, shy, awkward… Often they’re unable to eat in front of that person in its acute limerence stages.
A rollercoaster of emotions, from ecstasy to agony… Unreciprocated lust and desire, fear of the person of addiction finding out how intensely you feel. Chronic embarrassment, masking what you feel to the person of addiction, pretending to be aloof, rather like an ice queen, when in fact you feel quite the opposite… Viewing the person of addiction as a god or a goddess. Stalking behavior – and I think this is important. Obsession with the person of addiction. Sometimes following them or driving past their home to see if they are with somebody else.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Wonderful. Well, I’m recognizing we’ve spent a lot of time talking about love addiction, what it looks like, what it involves and how painful it is… And on the show I typically like to give people some tips, or tools… How do you help people — I know you have a whole program, and we’re not gonna go into that, because that’s what you can offer… But I was hoping maybe you might be able to give some people/listeners some starting steps to consider around how to start working with love addiction.
Helen Mia Harris: I was working in my treatment sessions one-to-one, either by Zoom or — well, Zoom these days, anyway. I work with the original neglect; this is one thing I haven’t mentioned here, and I think it’s deeply important, Jessica… Or abandonment. The word abandonment – primal abandonment. Much of this at the beginning of my working together would be working with the patient’s emotional trauma and anxious attachment. Then I move on to how they can better esteem themselves by self-care, building self-worth, particularly autonomy and self-identity.
The aim of this is to differentiate – and this is important – fantasy and denial from reality… Because a lot of people that have this propensity – I loathe to say it, but it’s absolutely true – feel that they can’t even begin to think it’s a fantasy, because it feels so real. I’m very sensitive to how I say things about denial and fantasy.
Working with the person’s deficient self-worth – all of this I’m giving in the program. Exploring the person’s sense of self-value, self-care, and the search for meaning and purpose. That would also go into exploring the primary years of someone’s relationship with the absent father or mother. That’s not to blame parents, but parents might have passed, or parents might have been arguing a lot… But I’m very, very sensitive not to blame all of this onto parents. But of course, I do go into a lot of the primary caretakers, and living in a world of isolation inside a little fairytale world of one’s own when they were very young, because I think a lot of love addiction has a lot to do with living in a make-believe world.
The other one is how to overcome and survive love withdrawal and a painful separation… So I’m working with different – particularly in the programs – meditations and visualizations with very beautiful music and my voice that’s guiding people through these imaginary journeys, using the person of addiction to release them and let them go, and coming back to their own autonomy and self-esteem and self-identity. Music is a very important part of that. There’s about seven meditations and visualizations in my recovery program.
Self-empowerment and self-confirmation, exercises, strategies and tools. I help them to build inner resources to work through projecting onto the other what they feel they lack in themselves, which is also included in my workbook, “How to take back rejections.” Reversing self-abandonment, putting the beloved before yourself – I help to reverse those abandonment symptoms.
Learning the difference between – and this is a key one – healthy love, insecure love, and anxious love. Self-development exercises to gain self-validation, self-empowerment and lovability. Discovering a way through rejection, insecurity and abandonment to work with one’s own self-worth and esteem… And knowing when love hurts to let go…
And then very briefly, another part of the workbook – I have written many books about “Why do we stay in relationships that are not good for us, and healthy, yet we can’t let go?” I’ve written a lot of eBooks about that for the recovery program. They can buy them in my shop anyway.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Okay.
Helen Mia Harris: Sorry I’m rushing, because I’m worried about running out of time.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: So it sounds like when you’re talking about that initial stage, it’s helping people become more conscious, perhaps, of those early attachment injuries? Is that what I’m hearing you say?
Helen Mia Harris: Yes, it is that, but it’s to do with how the primary attachments are relating to the unavailable partner. So there you get this kind of recreating of something that they’ve been longing for all their lives. That’s why this infliction of the heart – and this is very important – feels so familiar. That’s why people feel that they’ve met their soulmate.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes. And so you’re helping people recognize the pattern of attachment, how that’s relating to their current experience, how it perhaps is familiar, and recreating that similar wounding and helping them recognize that.
Helen Mia Harris: Yes, yes.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: It sounds like you offer a lot, and I appreciate your description. It sounds like there’s really being able to come back to the self and really have that mirroring that you were describing, as well as opportunities to deal with that very traumatic withdrawal and how to perhaps have a do-over, in some sense.
It’s interesting, because as you’re talking about the guided imagery and meditation, it’s almost as if you’re helping them have some scaffolding to have a different imprint around that separation… But it’s interesting, because it is another imagination process, but it’s helping them construct it in a way that’s very different than the fantasy and denial. Is that right?
Helen Mia Harris: Yes, yes. And can I — this is literally the most apt thing from Emily Bronte’s book… Can I just read this? Cathy and Heathcliff – this is from Wuthering Heights. She says:
“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” (Emily Bronte)
That’s exactly what love addiction is. It feels that when you look at this person, you have met your complete soulmate. And that somehow does go back to a very early attachment when perhaps one wasn’t met, or mirrored, or seen in an adequate way.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Absolutely. Wonderful. It sounds like you’re really encouraging that there is a healing that’s available, and you’re really helping guide people through not only your program, your services and your workbook, but helping people have some path around how to gain healing from love addiction.
Helen Mia Harris: Yes, I am. And it can happen to anybody in life. Any walk of life at all.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: And how can people get in touch with what you’re offering?
Helen Mia Harris: They can get in contact with me, because I have a practice over here in Britain. It would be either the Love Addiction side of my work – www.lovingtoomuch.com. That explains the program. And for inquiries, it’s [email protected]. That’s how they can get in contact with me.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Wonderful. And your workbook’s on Loving Too Much, as well as your program?
Helen Mia Harris: Yes, the workbook is part of the program. Within the program there are 12 streamlined videos, there’s eight eBooks that I’ve written, all on love addiction, unrequited love, “Why can I not let go of somebody that’s unhealthy for me?” The other thing is there’s seven imaginary journeys and meditations with beautiful music, that go on for anything from half an hour to three quarters of an hour, to reduce the acute symptoms of love addiction, so it lowers the stresses in the body and the endorphins and adrenaline…
And there is a 365-page workbook, full of strategies, tips and details that people can take part in themselves, about love withdrawal, grief, and meditations to move out of it. So it’s quite comprehensive, and it says a little bit about my own story in there.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Wonderful. Well, Helen, thank you so much for joining us today. I appreciate all the work and research you’ve done to be able to help guide people out of love addiction and into self-healing.
Helen Mia Harris: Thank you. It’s been very nice to speak with you, Jessica.
I hope you have enjoyed today’s interview, again, with Helen Mia Harris. Today’s episode, 251, “How to deal with love addiction” can be found on DrJessicaHiggins.com. There in the top navigation bar you can click on Podcast, and you can find all of the episodes there, and you’ll find today’s show notes under, again, episode 251.
I also wanna encourage you to check out the course developed by Dr. Susan Johnson, that both Helen and I referred to, and her work, and wholeheartedly believe in. You can find that course on DrJessicaHiggins.com if you click on Courses in the top navigation bar, and there you’ll find the course “Hold me tight.” This is an online program developed and facilitated by Dr. Susan Johnson herself, who is really helping couples establish connection, emotional connection, and looking at the moves that they make that contribute to that… And conversely, where they’re experiencing emotional disconnect, and what are the moves and what are the patterns that lend to that disconnection.
So as we look at emotional connection being so incredibly vital to the health of a relationship, I wanna encourage you to check that out. Again, DrJessicaHiggins.com, click on Podcast and look up “Hold me tight” and you’ll get access to all of that information there.
Thank you for listening. Until next time, I hope you take great care.
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