A Scientist L ooks at

and Calls I t

(Release 1.2)

by

Dorothy Tennov, Ph.D.

2005 by Dorothy Tennov, Ph.D.

Published by

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[Link]

The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................................................... 5
ABSTRACTS (SELECTED) ........................................................................................................................ 5
ABOUT DOROTHY TENNOV .............................................................................................................. 7
CHARACTERISTICS OF LIMERENCE A BRIEF DESCRIPTION BY DR. TENNOV ........................................ 10
GLOSSARY & COMMENT........................................................................................................................ 11
REVIEWS ................................................................................................................................................ 17
THE TRIAL (A LOVE STORY).......................................................................................................... 28
ACT I THE PEOPLE:............................................................................................................................... 29
ACT II THE TRIAL: ............................................................................................................................... 91
ACT III: LOVE CONTROL ................................................................................................................... 129
THE BREW3 QUINTET ..................................................................................................................... 165
CAST OF CHARACTERS ......................................................................................................................... 165
ACT I .................................................................................................................................................. 166
ACT II................................................................................................................................................. 190
ACT III................................................................................................................................................ 203
ABOUT THE TRIAL:.......................................................................................................................... 216
ABSTRACT, CONTENTS, AND CHARACTERS: THE NOVEL AND THE REALITY 2004 .............................. 216
BACKGROUND ...................................................................................................................................... 216
THE PLAY ............................................................................................................................................ 218
RESEARCH OF THE FUTURE .................................................................................................................. 220
REAL PEOPLE OF THE TRIAL ................................................................................................................. 221
REVIEWS OF LOVE AND LIMERENCE AND OTHER LIMERENCE STORIES FROM LIFE TIPS ................. 222
SCIENCE AND RELIGION................................................................................................................ 224
TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES ............................................................................................................... 225
LETTER FROM A READER ............................................................................................................. 227
(TYPICAL) ............................................................................................................................................ 227
ABOUT LIMERENCE RETREAT 1999 ..................................................................................................... 228
THE LIMERENCE RETREAT .......................................................................................................... 229
ABSTRACT OF THE RESEARCH REPORT; CHARACTERISTICS OF LIMERENCE:...................................... 229
CAST OF CHARACTERS ......................................................................................................................... 230
ACT ONE ........................................................................................................................................... 231
ACT TWO .......................................................................................................................................... 248
LIMERENCE RESEARCH AS ETHOLOGY .................................................................................. 262
THE ALGORITHM ................................................................................................................................. 263
ASPECTS OF THE METHODOLOGY: ....................................................................................................... 263
FURTHER TESTIMONY .......................................................................................................................... 264
WHAT IS LIMERENCE? ......................................................................................................................... 264
HUMAN NATURE SCIENCES.................................................................................................................. 265
CONFUSIONS OF NONLIMERENTS ......................................................................................................... 266

A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It Limerence:

NOTES .................................................................................................................................................. 266

REFERENCES AND RELATED SUBJECTS ................................................................................................ 267
LIMERENCE: THEORY OF ROMANTIC LOVE......................................................................... 268
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................... 268
THE SINS OF PSYCHOLOGY .................................................................................................................. 270
NOTES .................................................................................................................................................. 271
EARLIEST LOVE RESEARCH ................................................................................................................. 272
NEW METHODOLOGY........................................................................................................................... 273
THE BIRTH OF LIMERENCE THEORY (AND SOME RANDOM COMMENT) ............................... 276
COMMENTARIES............................................................................................................................... 278
CONCLUSION REGARDING RELIGION ................................................................................................... 278
THE 2004 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION .................................................................................................... 279
BUSHIAN DEMOCRACY ........................................................................................................................ 279
WILL WE WAKE UP? ........................................................................................................................... 284
LOVE MADNESS................................................................................................................................. 286
LIMERENCE DEFINED ........................................................................................................................... 287
THE MECHANISM OF INCEST TABOO .................................................................................................... 292
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................................... 294
THE BREAK ROOM ........................................................................................................................... 297
CAST .................................................................................................................................................... 297
SCENE ONE .......................................................................................................................................... 298
SCENE TWO.......................................................................................................................................... 302
SCENE THREE....................................................................................................................................... 313
LIMERENCE Q & A........................................................................................................................... 318
RACIAL SCIENCE:......................................................................................................................... 324
WHERE SCIENCE AND POLITICS CROSS HORNS...................................................................................... 324
ACADEMIAS POLITICAL BATTLEFIELD ................................................................................................ 324
THOUGHTS ABOUT HUMAN NATURE ........................................................................................ 326
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL LOOK AT LIMERENCE AND TORTURE............................................................ 326
FORCED CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................. 332
BASED ON PERSONAL EXPERIENCE ...................................................................................................... 332
RELIGION ............................................................................................................................................. 332
SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF A HIDDEN HANDICAP ............................................................................... 332
BELIEF AS COMFORTER ........................................................................................................................ 333
ACCOMPLISHMENT............................................................................................................................... 333
RHODA HALSEY AT HOME A SHORT PLAY ABOUT LIVING IN A NURSING HOME ................................. 334
INTRODUCTIONS................................................................................................................................... 334
REGARDING RHODA HALSEY ........................................................................................................... 346
CAN LIMERENCE BE STUDIED SCIENTIFICALLY?................................................................ 347
PHASES OF THE LIMERENCE RESEARCH ................................................................................ 350

The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov

THE PHASE OF WANDERING AND WONDERING .................................................................................... 350

THE PHASE OF LIMERENCE .................................................................................................................. 350
THE PHASE OF CONFIRMATION ............................................................................................................ 351
REACTION TO LIMERENCE THEORY ..................................................................................................... 351
CONCEPTIONS OF LIMERENCE ................................................................................................... 353
A DISTINCT STATE THAT FOLLOWS ITS OWN LAWS .......................................................... 358
FICTIONAL TRUTH ............................................................................................................................... 358

P eople
a Sketch by
Dorothy Tennov
June 6, 1999

A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It Limerence:

I ntroduction

n electronic reader is different than a book. Users can wander about it in, it choosing paths
according to their interests. Portions can, of course, be published separately as hardback or
paperback books, but the roaming freedom of the electronic medium allows the researcher (or
person of idle curiosity) to be settled comfortably in a Lazy Boy while doing research that would
previously have taken years using the library, months using the Internet to supplement ones own
accumulated library, but now can be accomplished in hours or minutes (depending on specific interests).
The story of limerence is fascinating. There are philosophical, social, and religious sources of opposition
to the idea of so sacred a phenomenon being placed under scientific scrutiny. These ideas are herein
given their due, as are the ways that limerence has been culturally interpreted, across time and among
societies. There is considerable discussion of how psychology, psychiatry, and medicine have dealt with
it. For example, establishment psychiatry tends view limerence as an aberration, as do those who find
it difficult to imagine an experience so unlike their own. This point is much emphasized in the novel.
This eBook/Book-on-CD will include essays about how the various events, research, and opinions
represented among the various uses of the word relate to standard linguistic rules of language. It will
also discuss the way that those usages fit with limerence theory and its probable effects on overt
behavior, however hidden may be the existence of the natural, full-blown, condition. Because the
implications of limerence have ramifications across many fields, references and sponsorship (see below)
will touch on diverse fields, such as evolutionary biology, human ethology, sociobiology, anthropology,
economics, political science, journalism, biography, fiction, legend, etc.

Abstracts (Selected)
TT novel 100,000 words The Trial (A Love Story) (TT) is a novel concerning problematic aspects of
psychotherapy as practiced and promoted in the United States, and the nature and effects of
physiologically-based means of control over limerence. There are many references to books and articles
that discuss the ongoing controversies about psychotherapy. There are also references to evidence from
various sources confirmatory of the basic thesis that limerence exists as an isolable entity that is at the
core of human reproduction as well as being the motor of control over certain aspects of human
behavior. Some of the demands of the limerence condition lead to personal, social, and even historical
disruptions and dangers. Hence, there are many references to literature, history, biography, etc. The
novel contains about 100,000 words of text plus about 300 references, some of which include
biographical notes, quotations, and in some cases whole articles by other authors and comment from
them concerning the central theses of limerence theory.
B3Q play 171 40,000 words The Brew3 Quintet is a stage play in which five characters from the
novel attempt to deal with the personal and social implications of controlling limerence through drugs.
Three acts, ten scenes. Both the play and the novel were written to tell aspects of the limerence story that
would be difficult to discuss in a peer-reviewed journal article.

The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov

LR dialogue 775/20,000 words The Limerence Retreat is a dialogue among six fictional characters
from a variety of limerence-related backgrounds as they encounter evidence of the existence of the state
of limerence through their examination of raw data. Additional files give some reactions from
colleagues.
DATA article 776/6,000 words [excerpts only included in the current work] The Data of the Letters
is a quantitative and qualitative analysis of personal testimony submitted in writing to the author by
readers of the book, Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love between the years 1980 and
2000, mostly (about 70% of the total) during the first decade after the initial publication in 1979. The
Data of the Letters is in the form of a research report as might be included in a peer-reviewed journal.
Methods and findings are detailed, with discussion closely related to empirical results.
WORD linguistic article 495/10,000 words. If you Google on the word limerence, you will
discover a thousand references. Types of items vary from rock music groups to neurology articles.
Descriptions of limerence can now be found both within and beyond academia. The search reveals a
wide range of sometimes-bizarre uses. People have adopted the word in literature, poetry, as the name of
a consulting business, and even pornography. Tabulations relate types of uses to the actual experience
for which the term was originally devised.
Most of the content has focused on analysis of the limerence theory, including a linguistic section about
how the word limerence is used by others. It is rare that an artificial term, invented, and chosen
deliberately to be without cognates, not only originates at a known date and place, but then expands
tractably during a quarter-century across disciplines and continents sometimes arriving at meanings
different from that intended by its inventor. The range of uses of the term limerence include a
Japanese Rock group, an Italian nightclub, poetry, the name of a yacht whose owners send back emails
to friends with labels such as Limerence Bulletin No. 47, the name in an email address, a type of
pornography (called S-M Limerence), advice columns (which sometimes make recommendations that
include take a trip, forget him, buck up, get serious, start a new hobby, etc.) that may be worse than
merely unhelpful, book lists for courses in evolutionary psychology, anthropology, counseling, and etc.,
and citations in journal articles and books. There are also some of my own past writings on the subject.
GLOS Glossary 496/3,000 words. Definitions and discussions of uses of various terms and concepts
encountered in other sections.
REF Bibliography 777/20,000 words References to all works cited in the other sections of the book,
usually with a brief annotation.

F lowers by Dorothy Tennov

A ugust 18, 2000

A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It Limerence:

About
Dorothy Tennov
DOROTHY TENNOV, Ph.D. is a former professor of psychology, student of the philosophy of science,
and author. Among her other writings are a prize-wining play about life in a nursing home, reviews of books
on scientific subjects, presentations at scientific meetings, and
essays. Her television credits include a PBS interview with the late
French novelist and essayist, Simone de Beauvoir and appearance
in a 1998 BBC documentary, The Evolution of Desire.
Dr. Tennov also had a brief meeting with Jean Paul Sartre and
once took her students to Harvard for a day with B.F. Skinner.
She has participated in Internet discussions on scientific and
political topics while conducting research for the present work
and for a forthcoming book in which she plans more fully to
analyze the methodologies and philosophies of the human
sciences.
Dorothy Tennov received her doctorate in experimental
psychology with secondary focus in the philosophy of science from the University of Connecticut in 1964.
Following a professorship at the University of Bridgeport, she studied a range of topics including strategies
for personal planning and for increasing productivity, the search for human universals in emotional states,
and the effects of incentive structures and other biasing influences on the practices of scientists.
Currently an independent scholar and researcher, she wrote the prize-winning 1979 Love and Limerence: The
Experience of Being in Love. Reissued in 1999 with a new preface by Scarborough House, Love and Limerence is
widely cited in the psychological literature as a classic in the scientific study of romantic attraction.
She coined the terms limerence (called Love Two in her fiction) and limerent to refer to a distinct
pattern revealed by her research on romantic love. In other writings she explores the complicated social
implications of Limerence Theory, and the legal and social options that might be adopted to deal with some
of its aspects. Some of these issues are explored in the play The Brew3 Quintet.
Her 1975 work, Psychotherapy: The Hazardous Cure (Abelard-Schumann) has recently been cited by groups
suspicious about the value of talking cures. In 1995, her play, Rhoda Halsey at Home, performed for
nursing students and other health workers, won a statewide competition. It is available to any professionals
interested in using it in their educational programs. Dr. Tennov is currently working on several projects,
including a play and a book about public and scientific reactions to the concept of limerence. She is also
using electronically derived data in a study of the roots of political opinion.

The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov

Dr. Tennov is an active and vocal member of the Authors Guild, the International Society for Human
Ethology (ISHE), the European Society for Sociobiology (ESS), the Human Behavior and Evolution Society
(HBES), the American Psychological Association (APA), and the Association for Politics and the Life
Sciences (APLS).
Dorothy Tennov spent the first two decades of her life in Brooklyn, New York, and the next four in
Pennsylvania and (mostly) in Connecticut. She has lived in Millsboro, Delaware, since January 1987. These
days she lives with television, VCRs, computers, an ancient Steinway, and a small white dog that protects her
by announcing visitors with an ear-splitting bark.

In her own words

orn in 1928, my experiences span wondrous changes in the opportunities afforded
women. My personal s tory cont ains many ins t ances of wha t seems to have been
prejudice agains t me because of my sex. Furthermore, I am the vic tim of a disorder tha t
adversely influences social int erac tions.

I grew up in New York City and in some ways I never lef t. I endured job discrimina tion but ended
as a t enured professor and the writ er of three books published in the 1970s.
My university career ended when I was placed on permanent disability leave, and I have since
continued my academic work independently.
Although family responsibility and ever-failing comput ers, in their earlier days, made
accomplishment difficult, I did, however, continue to collec t the informa tion from books,
journals, newspapers tha t have shaped the conceptions tha t I am writing about today. In
recent years, until the novel and the play tha t are included here, I published only professionally
(articles, present a tions a t mee tings and chapt ers) and made no a t t empt to publish
commercially.
My life time during the second half of the 20 th century mirrored, and was influenced by, his torical
event s. I int erviewed Simone de Beauvoir for a PBS document ary and experienced the rare
privilege of shaking hands with Jean-Paul Sartre. With my gradua t e s tudent s, I visit ed B.F.
Skinner in his Harvard office. I witnessed and participa t ed in the grea t 20 th century American
social movement s, including civil right s, feminism, and Vie tnam. The las t is s till going on in the
Mideas t.
Education
1964 Ph.D., experimental psychology, philosophy of science; University of Connecticut
1954 M.A., social psychology; University of Connecticut
1950 B.A., psychology; CUNY-Brooklyn College

Books
Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love (1979). New York: Stein & Day; German translation (1981)
Limerenz-uber ebe und Verliebtsein by Wolfgang Stifter, Munchen: Kosel-Verlag; paperback (1982, 1987) Stein
& Day; (1989) Scarborough House.

A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It Limerence:

Managing Childrens Behavior: A Manual (1977) Univ. of Bridgeport, offset; (1978) Educational Research
Information Center (ERIC), Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, microfiche.
Super Self: A Womans Guide to Self-Management (1976) New York: Funk & Wagnalls; (1978) paperback Jove.
Psychotherapy: The Hazardous Cure (1975) New York: Abelard-Schuman; (1976) paperback Doubleday-Anchor.
Proceedings of the First Childbirth Conference (1974) Stamford, Connecticut:
(coeditor, Hirsch, L.)

New Moon Communications

Chronological Summary
1964 to 1986 Assistant to Full (tenured) Professor of Psychology, University of Bridgeport
1968 to 1980 Licensed Consulting Psychologist, private practice, Fairfield County, Connecticut
1975 Textbook consultant, West Publishers
1974 Visiting Scientist, National Science Foundation. Western Connecticut State College
1974 Textbook consultant, Harper & Row
1974 Consulting editor, Journal of Clinical and Consulting Psychology
1973 Representative at the National Conference on Training in Psychology, American Psychological
Association, Vail, Colorado
1970-1971 Director, Behavior Environment Institute
1970-1971 Association for Women in Psychology, National Committee Co-chair for Social Issues and
Programs
1970 Status of Women Subcommittee, American Psychological Association
1970 Psychological consultant, Board of Education, Norwalk, Connecticut
1967 Instructor, Yeshiva Univ., New York City
1966 Instructor, experimental psychology. Hunter Coll., New York City
1960-1964 instructor, University of Connecticut, Stamford,
Connecticut; Storrs, Connecticut
1952-1955 Counselor Day Care Division, Department of Welfare,
City of New York

The Education of Cupid (Corregio)