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'''Infatuation''' or '''being smitten''' is the state of being carried away by an unreasoned passion.

==Characteristics==
Cox says that infatuation can be distinguished from romantic love only when looking back on a particular interest. Infatuation may also develop into a mature love.<ref>Frank D. Cox, ''Human Intimacy'' (2008) p. 72</ref> Goldstein and Brandon describe infatuation as the first stage of a relationship before developing into a mature intimacy.<ref>A. Goldstein and M. Brandon, ''Reclaiming Desire'' (2009) p. 232</ref> Phillips describes how the illusions of infatuations inevitably lead to disappointment when learning the truth about a lover.<ref>Adam Phillips, ''On Flirtation'' (London 1994) p. 40</ref> It is an object of extravagant, short-lived passion or temporary love of an adolescent.<ref>{{Cite web|title = Infatuation meaning - Spinfold|url = http://www.spinfold.com/infatuation-meaning/|website = Spinfold|access-date = 2016-02-09|language = en-US}}</ref>

==Youth==

'It is customary to view young people's dating relationships and first relationships as [[puppy love]] or infatuation';<ref>Vappu Tyyska, ''Long and Winding Road'' (2001) p. 131</ref> and if infatuation is both an early stage in a deepening sequence of love/attachment, ''and'' at the same time a potential stopping point, it is perhaps no surprise that it is a condition especially prevalent in the first, youthful explorations of the world of relationships. Thus 'the first passionate adoration of a youth for a celebrated actress whom he regards as far above him, to whom he scarcely dares lift his bashful eyes'<ref>Sigmund Freud, ''Case Histories II'' (PFL 9) p. 387</ref> may be seen as part of an 'infatuation with celebrity especially perilous with the young'.<ref>Timothy W. Quinnan, ''Generation Lost'' (2002) p. 132</ref>

Admiration plays a significant part in this, as 'in the case of a schoolgirl crush on a boy or on a male teacher. The girl starts off admiring the teacher..[then] may get hung up on the teacher and follow him around'.<ref>Eric Berne, ''Sex in Human Loving'' (Penguin 1970) p. 108</ref> Then there may be shame at being confronted with the fact that 'you've got what's called a crush on him...Think if someone was hanging around ''you'', pestering and sighing'.<ref>Diana Wynne Jones, ''Fire and Hemlock'' (London 2000) p. 347-8</ref> Of course 'sex may come into this...with an infatuated schoolgirl or schoolboy'<ref>Berne, p. 108-10</ref> as well, producing the 'stricken gaze, a compulsive movement of the throat...an "I'm lying down and I don't care if you walk on me, babe", expression'<ref>L J Smith, ''Night World Vol II'' (2009) p. 51</ref> of infatuation. Such a cocktail of emotions 'may even falsify the "erotic sense of reality": when a person in love estimates his partner's virtues he is usually not very realistic...projection of all his ideals onto the partner's personality'.<ref>Otto Fenichel, ''The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis'' (London 1946) p. 86</ref>

It is this projection that differentiates infatuation from love, according to the spiritual teacher Meher Baba: "In infatuation, the person is a ''passive victim'' of the spell of conceived attraction for the object. In love there is an ''active appreciation'' of the intrinsic worth of the object of love."<ref>Baba, Meher (1967). [http://www.discoursesbymeherbaba.org ''Discourses'']. Volume I. San Francisco: Sufism Reoriented. p. 159. ISBN 978-1-880619-09-4.</ref>

Distance from the object of infatuation—as with celebrities—can help maintain the infatuated state. A time-honoured cure for the one who 'has a ''tendre''...infatuated' is to have 'thrown them continually together...by doing so you will cure...[or] you will know that it is not an infatuation'.<ref>Georgette Heyer, ''The Grand Sophy'' (London 1974) p. 101</ref>

==Types==
Three types of infatuation have been identified by Brown: the first, and perhaps most common, being a state of 'being 'carried away, without insight or proper evaluative judgement, by blind desire'.<ref name=brown-38>Brown, p. 38</ref> The second, 'evaluation...may well be sound although the craving or love remains unaffected by it'; while 'a third type is that of the agent who exhibits bad judgement and misevaluation for reasons such as ignorance or recklessness', regardless of their desire.<ref name=brown-38/>

==In transference==

In psychoanalysis, a sign that the method is taking hold is 'the initial infatuation to be observed at the beginning of treatment',<ref>Jacques Lacan, ''Ecrits: A Selection'' (London 1997) p. 241</ref> the beginning of transference. The patient, in Freud's words, 'develops a special interest in the person of the doctor...never tires in his home of praising the doctor and of extolling ever new qualities in him'.<ref>Sigmund Freud, ''Introductory Lectures in Psychoanalysis'' (PFL 1) p. 491</ref> What occurs, 'it is usually maintained...is a sort of false love, a shadow of love', replicating in its course the infatuations of 'what is called true love'.<ref>Jacques Lacan,''The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis'' (London 1993) p. 123</ref>

Some however claim that it is wrong to convince the patient 'that their love is an illusion...that it's not you she loves. Freud was off base when he wrote that. It ''is'' you. Who else could it be?'<ref>Janet Malcolm, ''Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession'' (London 1988) p. 149</ref>—thereby taking 'the question of what is called true love...further than it had ever been taken'.<ref>Lacan, ''Fundamental'' p. 123</ref>

Conversely, in countertransference, the therapist may become infatuated with his/her client: 'very good-looking...she was the most gratifying of patients. She made literary allusions and understood the ones he made....He was dazzled by her, a little in love with her. After two years, the analysis ground down to a horrible halt'.<ref>Malcolm, p. 79</ref>

==Intellectual infatuations==

Infatuations need not only involve people, but can extend to objects, activities, and ideas. 'Men are always falling in love with other men...with their war heroes and sport heroes':<ref>Carol O'Connell, ''Flight of the Stone Angel'' (London 1997) p. 74</ref> with institutions, discourses and role models. Thus for example Jung's initial '"unconditional devotion" to Freud's theories and his "no less unconditional veneration" of Freud's person' was seen at the time by both men as a 'quasi-religious infatuation to...a cult object';<ref>Peter Gay, ''Freud: A Life for Our Time'' (London 1989) p. 204</ref> while Freud in turn was 'very attracted by Jung's personality',<ref>Ernest Jones, ''The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud'' (Penguin 1964) p. 328</ref> perhaps 'saw in Jung an idealized version of himself':<ref>Frank McLynn, ''Carl Gustav Jung'' (London 1996) p. 157</ref> a mutual admiration society—'intellectually infatuated with one another'.<ref>Anthony stevens, ''Jung'' (Oxford 1994) p. 12</ref>

A woman too might have 'had a hankering for one ''guru'' after another...she loved being a pupil.'<ref>C. P. Snow, ''Corridors of Power'' (Penguin 1975) p. 146</ref>

But there are also collective infatuations: 'we are all prone to being drawn into ''social phantasy systems'' '.<ref>R. D. Laing, ''Self and Others'' (Penguin 1972) p. 38</ref> Thus for instance 'the recent intellectual infatuation with structuralism and post-structuralism'<ref>Sally Banes, ''Terpsichore in Sneakers'' (1980) p. xxviii</ref> arguably lasted at least until 'September 11 ended intellectual infatuation with postmodernism'<ref>David Stoesz, ''Quixote's Ghost'' (2005)</ref> as a whole.

Economic bubbles thrive on collective infatuations of a different kind: 'all boom-bust processes contain an element of misunderstanding or misconception',<ref>George Soros, ''The New Paradigms for Financial Markets'' (London 2008) p. 64</ref> whether it is the 'infatuation with...becoming the latest dot.com billionaire',<ref>Haynes Johnson, ''The Best of Times'' (2001) p. 25</ref> or the one that followed with subprime mortgages, once 'Greenspan had replaced the tech bubble with a housing bubble'.<ref>Gregory Zuckerman, ''The Greatest Trade Ever'' (London 2010) p. 83</ref> As markets 'swung virtually overnight from euphoria to fear' in the Financial crisis (2007-present)|credit crunch, even the most hardened Market fundamentalism|market fundamentalist had to concede that such 'periodic surges of euphoria and fear are manifestations of deep-seated aspects of human nature'<ref>Alan Greenspan, ''The Age of Turbulence'' (Penguin 2008) p. 520-3</ref>—whether these are enacted in home-room infatuations or upon the global stage.

==Literary analogues==

Shakespeare's sonnets have been described as a "Poetics for Infatuation"; as being dominated by one theme, and 'that theme is infatuation, its initiation, cultivation, and history, together with its peaks of triumph and devastation'—a lengthy exploration of the condition of being 'subject to the appropriate disorders that belong to our infatuation...the condition of infatuation.'<ref>R. P. Blackmur/J. T Jones, ''Outsider at the Heart of Things'' (1989) p. 242 and p. 246</ref>

==See also==
* [[Puppy love]]

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Further reading==
* Grohol, J. Phys.D (2006). [http://psychcentral.com/library/love_infatuation.html "Love Versus Infatuation"], Retrieved: Nov 24th 2008
* Harville, H. PhD. (1992). ''Keeping the Love You Find'', New York: Pocket Books.
* Glencoe/McGraw-Hill. (2000). Whitney, DeBruyne, Sizer-Webb, ''Health: Making Life Choices'' (pp. 494–496)

Infatuation - Revision history

Adminpeter at 17:19, 30 May 2017