HOUSTON BASED SPECIALIST
Individual Therapy for Love Addiction and Love Avoidance
What Is Love Addiction?
Love Addiction (Noun)
Love addiction goes beyond wanting closeness. It’s a pattern of dependency where relationships feel like the only source of safety or self-worth. Those struggling often experience relationship anxiety, a constant need for reassurance, and difficulty being alone. This cycle frequently overlaps with codependency, where one partner sacrifices their own needs in order to keep the relationship intact. Over time, this dependency can create painful dynamics, especially when paired with an avoidant partner.
Therapy for Love Addiction
Signs of Love Avoidance
Where love addiction clings to closeness, love avoidance resists it. Someone with love avoidance often struggles with fear of intimacy, keeping emotional walls up or withdrawing when a partner gets too close.
Signs may include:
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Pulling away when emotions get intense
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Feeling trapped by commitment or closeness
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Distracting with work, hobbies, or isolation
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Creating distance in response to a partner’s needs
When love addiction and avoidance meet, couples often fall into anxious avoidant attachment cycles—one partner pursues while the other withdraws—leaving both feeling frustrated and misunderstood.
Healing begins with recognizing the signs. Use this checklist to reflect on your experience and take the first step toward recovery.
Do you feel consumed by thoughts of your partner or relationship?
Love addiction often shows up as obsessive preoccupation, leaving little room for your own needs, growth, or independence.
Do you fear being alone, even in unhealthy relationships?
This intense relationship anxiety may cause you to stay in situations that don’t feel safe or supportive, simply to avoid abandonment.
Do you often lose your sense of self in a relationship?
Patterns of codependency can lead you to sacrifice your well-being in order to gain love, approval, or attention.
Do you feel pulled toward partners who are emotionally unavailable?
Many with love addiction find themselves stuck in cycles with avoidant partners, triggering an anxious avoidant attachment dynamic that reinforces the pain.
How Therapy Can Help Break the Cycle
With compassionate support, these patterns can be healed. Therapy provides a safe space to explore old wounds, understand attachment styles, and develop healthier ways of relating. Clients learn to:
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Calm relationship anxiety and build self-worth outside of the relationship
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Heal patterns of codependency and reclaim balance
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Practice vulnerability to reduce fear of intimacy
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Shift from anxious or avoidant patterns into secure attachment
Through therapy for love addiction and love avoidance counseling in Houston, you can begin to break free from the cycle and create relationships built on trust, balance, and true connection.
Receive Non-Judgemental Support
Renee’s Approach
Love addiction therapy focuses on helping individuals who exhibit compulsive, obsessive, or dependent behaviors in romantic relationships. People with love addiction may constantly seek out romantic partners, become excessively dependent on their partners for validation and self-worth, and experience intense fear of abandonment or rejection. Love avoidance therapy focuses on helping individuals who exhibit avoidant behaviors in romantic relationships. People with love avoidance may fear intimacy, closeness, and vulnerability in relationships, leading them to withdraw emotionally, avoid commitment, or sabotage relationships to maintain emotional distance. Renee provides support, guidance, and therapeutic interventions aimed at addressing underlying issues, changing unhealthy patterns of behavior, and promoting healthier relationship dynamics.
Explore Attachment & Childhood Trauma
Renee helps individuals explore their attachment patterns and childhood experiences that contribute to compulsive or avoidant behaviors in intimate relationships.
Cognitive Restructuring
Renee uses cognitive-behavioral techniques to help individuals challenge and reframe distorted beliefs and negative thought patterns related to love addiction or love avoidance.
Emotional Regulation
Therapy focuses on helping individuals develop healthy coping mechanisms for managing difficult emotions such as anxiety, fear, shame, or loneliness, which often contribute to addiction or avoidant behaviors.
Q&A: About Love Addiction & Love Avoidance Therapy
What is love addiction and love avoidance therapy?
Love addiction and love avoidance therapy are specialized forms of counseling aimed at helping individuals overcome unhealthy patterns of behavior in romantic relationships. Love addiction therapy focuses on addressing compulsive or dependent behaviors in relationships, while love avoidance therapy targets avoidant behaviors and fear of intimacy.
What are the goals of love addiction and love avoidant therapy?
The goals include:
- Understanding and addressing underlying emotional issues.
- Recognizing and changing unhealthy patterns of behavior in relationships.
- Developing healthier relationship skills and communication techniques.
- Building self-awareness, self-esteem, and self-compassion.
- Establishing and maintaining healthy boundaries in relationships.
- Overcoming fear of intimacy and developing trust in relationships.
- Creating fulfilling and mutually satisfying relationships.
How do I know if love addiction and love avoidance therapy is right for me?
If you struggle with compulsive or dependent behaviors in relationships (love addiction) or fear of intimacy and avoidance of closeness (love avoidance), therapy may be beneficial. Schedule a consultation with Renee to discuss your concerns and determine if therapy is a good fit for your needs.
What is the difference between love addiction and codependency?
Love addiction is the craving for constant closeness and reassurance, often leading someone to stay in unhealthy relationships out of relationship anxiety or fear of being alone. Codependency is different—it’s when a person’s identity and self-worth become tied to taking care of or fixing their partner. Both patterns can fuel unhealthy dynamics linked to anxious avoidant attachment.
How does love avoidance show up in relationships?
Love avoidance is a fear of intimacy that causes someone to pull back when relationships feel too close. It often shows up as emotional withdrawal, keeping walls up, or distracting with work or hobbies instead of connecting. This creates a push-pull cycle when paired with a more anxious or codependent partner.
Can this be treated with therapy?
Yes. Therapy helps uncover the roots of love addiction, codependency, and avoidance. A therapist can guide you in healing attachment wounds, learning healthy boundaries, and building safe, fulfilling connections. With support, old patterns can shift, and relationships can feel secure and balanced again.
CONTACT
(832)-969-3885
LOCATION
Sessions provided virtually throughout Texas.
Select Number of In-Person Sessions Available:
9575 Katy Fwy, #291
Houston, Texas 77024