One of the topics that clients come to me with is emotional (love) addiction. What it is? Emotional dependence is the loss of a sense of personal autonomy for emotional reasons. A person enters into different relationships in his life. If they are mutual and bring joy and satisfaction to both parties, then such natural attachment in relationships (for example, in marital, partner relationships) is called “interdependence” in psychology and does not relate to pathological adaptation. This term, perhaps not very successful, implies that both are free in the relationship and at the same time can feel the need for each other, love each other, without experiencing a constraining feeling of coercion, limitation of opportunities and free will of each other. Upon loss of a relationship: separation from a partner , divorce from a wife or husband, physical loss of someone close (including a pet) - the period of letting go of the past is not always painless and final. Of course, there is a conditional time period of adaptation to new living conditions in such cases, and it depends on the person’s perception of the severity of his loss. The situation becomes a problem when a person becomes emotionally fixated on his loss for a long time (it varies from person to person, but it is usually considered to be more than a year). He strives to “bring back last year’s snow”: he is constantly sad, remembers past relationships (about a loved one, a pet). A person constantly regrets the loss, is upset that the lost object of his desire is not nearby. And what happens is that, on the contrary, he forbids himself to think at all about his loss, displacing his experiences into the area of ​​the unconscious. Then these experiences will continue to influence his state from the unconscious and will result in chronic suffering, which can result in psychosomatic symptoms and even illness. In these cases, it is necessary to help a person say “goodbye” to his loss not only at the mental level, but also at the level of emotions and feelings, to let go of this fragment of the past. like a balloon that flies into the sky if released from your hands. This does not mean forgetting a person dear to your heart (or a creature, if we are talking about a pet), but it does mean experiencing the pain of parting with him once, and then remembering neutrally or with love, gratitude, warmth in the heart and accept this memory as your valuable life experience. Not everyone who has experienced a loss or separation from a loved one can do this on their own. This is where emotional-imaginative therapy (EFT) sessions with a specialist can come to the rescue. During these sessions, a person “returns investments,” that is, invested feelings, parts of his personality that were associated with the desired object, back to himself. The subject is also “along the way” freed from guilt, resentment, fears and other negative feelings associated in one way or another with the lost object. He can return to his ex-partner the investments (expectations, feelings) that he made in him in order to restore the “energy balance”. Such psychotherapy can take more than one session so as not to overload the client’s psyche and give him the opportunity to heal in an environmentally friendly way, as soon as he is ready , let go of your suffering from the past. As a result of such work, the subject integrates with his previously lost feelings or parts of his personality, which allows him to truly let go of the object of his desires and/or past relationships. Case from practice. A 29-year-old woman (a certain Mrs. N) approached me. The client was worried about a state of dissatisfaction and regret after breaking up with a man with whom she had had a close relationship for many years. When they met and communicated, he treated her well, constantly provided her with support and care. However, the situation turned out to be such that they broke up. She married someone else, and he also married later. 73, 78. 100.