Everyone makes mistakes in relationships at one time or another. Sometimes they learn from those mistakes. Other times, they return to those behaviors and cycle through failed relationship after failed relationship. Sometimes those behaviors become an addiction to love that may leave a person feeling unhappy, unfulfilled, lonely, or worse. Lesbian Love Addiction: Understanding the Urge to Merge and How to Heal When Things go Wrong makes visible the elements of love addiction that many lesbians suffer from.

Love addiction for lesbians comes in many forms. Some struggle by sexually acting out and others are serial relationship junkies, jumping from one relationship into the next. Some are addicted to the high of falling in love and once that wears off don’t know how to handle the day-to-day realities of a committed relationship. Some are even addicted to fantasy and intrigue, while others are love avoidants and sexual anorexics. Love avoidants may be able to get into a relationship but once they are fully committed, struggle with feeling smothered. Others may avoid intimate or sexual relationships all together, becoming sexually anorexic. Some may even vacillate between all of these. The underlying component and common denominator in all of these scenarios is the “Urge to Merge.”

Lesbian Love Addiction is designed to help ameliorate at least part of this problem. Lauren D. Costine offers insight for lesbians, bisexual women in relationships with women, queer women, and more specifically, any woman who loves women, as well as their family and friends, and health care professionals, into the psychology of lesbian love addiction. It will give those who struggle with and suffer from love addiction ways to understand, cope, and heal from this debilitating addiction. It will give those who work with this population new tools to use to do this more effectively. Mostly, it will help lesbians understand their relationship failures and how to heal from problems associated with them, so they may grow and cultivate happier, more fulfilling connections in the future.

Lauren Costine, PhD, is an LA-based therapist specializing in therapy with for lesbians. In addition to her therapeutic practice, Costine is an educator, activist, administrator, and author. She is currently the Chief Clinician and Founder of The LGBT-Affirmative Track at BLVD Treatment Centers – an intensive outpatient treatment center in Hollywood. She was one of the founding members and developers of The LGBT Specialization in Clinical Psychology at Antioch University Los Angeles (AULA), the nation’s first LGBT-Affirmative program where she still teaches. Her involvement included the development and teaching of such popular courses as LGBT History & Myth, Lesbian Liberation and LGBT Community Action.. Professionally, she has presented workshops at various national and regional conferences and has published a number of articles in such magazines as SheWired, Addiction Professional Magazine and Smart Lesbian Online Magazine. As an activist, Costine has helped produce a variety of grassroots psychological cultural events aimed to promulgate LGBT-Affirmative psychological ideas for the community in accessible ways through various mediums via The LGBT Specialization. She has a monthly written and video blog on her website, http://drlaurencostine.com, titled “Dr. Costine’s Commentary.”