Dorothy Tennov

Who was Dorothy Tennov?

Dorothy Tennov was an American psychologist who, in her 1979 book Love and Limerence – the Experience of Being in Love introduced the term "limerence". During her years of research into romantic love experiences, she obtained thousands of personal testimonies from questionnaires, interviews, and letters from readers of her writing, in an attempt to support her hypothesis that a distinct and involuntary psychological state occurs identically among otherwise normal persons across cultures, educational level, gender, and other traits. Tennov emphasized that her data consist entirely of verbal reports by volunteers who reported their love experiences.