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Anna Karenina syndrome: uncontrolled love

Anna Karenina syndrome: uncontrolled love

March 21, 2024

We all know someone who has occasionally fallen in love with an obsessive way and without control. In fact, for many people, love is not conceived if it is not that way. That interpersonal fusion taken to the limit, this feeling that you can not live without the other, magnify him, idealize him, does not usually lead to a good outcome if you do not put a stop to it in time.

In fact, this uncontrolled and limitless love alienates the one who suffers it, who stops feeling a complete and independent person and comes to believe that there is no life if it is not with the other, as happened to Anna Karenina. In this article we will talk about a concept that we could call Anna Karenina syndrome .


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What is the Anna Karenina syndrome?

Anna Karenina is a fictional character who stars in the literary work of the same name, written by Lev Tolstoy in 1877. This classic of universal literature reflects the tragic circumstances in which too intense and passionate love can lead .

The protagonist, who in the novel is married, falls madly in love with another man, a soldier named Vronsky, and ends up leaving everything for him. And everything is everything, her husband, her social position, her son, and finally her life.

Anna Karenina Syndrome is related to an obsessive affective pattern characterized by an absolute dependence of the beloved figure. This affects considerably the other areas of life of the person, which lose importance and are overshadowed by THE OTHER in capital letters, which ends up covering everything.


Who suffers from this syndrome, like the protagonist, is capable of anything just to be next to who he loves.

We have many examples in the cinema of this kind of passionless lack of control , as is the case of the little mermaid from Disney, who loses her mermaid status, abandons her family, her environment, even gives her voice as long as she is next to the idealized loved one.

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Is it therefore harmful to love intensely?

Against what Hollywood sells us and the successes of the top 40, loving obsessively is undoubtedly the worst way to love. Although At first, this emotional flood may seem attractive , it can end up becoming one of the worst diseases that the human being can experience.

This way of loving is linked to anguish: anguish at the thought that the loved one can stop loving us, anguish at not having him always at our side, anguish at the fear of being deceived. Therefore, the "without you I am nothing" and the "I can not live without you" are examples not to follow at the time of assuming a role in the relationship .


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What are the consequences of this affective phenomenon?

There are many consequences of loving so intensely, from losing the vital direction, plummeting self-esteem, loss of one's integrity and emotional balance .... Until another type of more dire consequences, like those that Anna has in the book.

Do not love me so much, love me better

It is recommended, therefore, not to focus on the amount of love that is given or received, but on the quality of it. There are a number of aspects in which we can work to avoid falling into this syndrome:

  • Be architects of our own happiness . Do not look for it outside but inside. Join the other as life partners, not as crutches, bandages, nurses or psychologists.
  • "Do not put all the eggs in the same basket". Maintain friendships, hobbies, family relationships, and an enriching life beyond the relationship of a couple.
  • Own and foreign freedom . Maintain the limits of individuality and the freedom of both members.
  • Do not love blindly , but in a conscious way. Have your eyes wide open to the behavior of the other, and take action if what we observe we do not like.

LITERATURE: Leo Tolstoy (March 2024).


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