Symptoms and psychological treatment of unrequited love

Unrequited love is mainly manifested as strong emotions towards someone but unable to receive a response, often accompanied by symptoms such as low mood, excessive fantasy, and social avoidance. Psychological therapy can be intervened through cognitive-behavioral therapy, emotional release training, self-worth reconstruction, social skills training, mindfulness meditation, and other methods. Unrequited love may be related to personality traits, emotional deficits, traumatic experiences, social disorders, depressive tendencies, and other factors.

1. Cognitive behavioral therapy

identifies and corrects irrational cognition towards a loved one, such as excessive glorification or absolutist thinking. Therapists will guide patients to replace fantasies with reality tests, such as recording the gap between the other person's actual behavior and their self expectations. Common techniques include mind sheets, behavioral experiments, etc., which are suitable for unrequited love caused by perfectionism tendencies.

2. Emotional release training

uses safe methods to release pent up emotions, such as directed writing, empty chair techniques, etc. Reduce psychological repression by converting unexpressed emotions into text or simulated conversations. For patients with somatic symptoms caused by emotional suppression, art therapy or sandplay therapy can be used to relieve emotions.

3. Self value reconstruction

Through exercises such as advantage lists and achievement reviews, self-identity is enhanced, breaking the pattern of binding self-worth to others' responses. Especially suitable for patients who rely excessively on others' recognition due to childhood emotional neglect, and need to continue with self-esteem enhancement training.

4. Social skills training

aims to establish equal relationships through role-playing learning for unrequited love caused by social anxiety or communication barriers. Focus on training nonverbal expression, topic expansion, and refusal skills to reduce one-way emotional dependence caused by social anxiety.

5. Mindfulness meditation

reduces compulsive longing for loved ones through the practice of observation acceptance release meditation. Body scanning and respiratory anchoring techniques can alleviate anxious physical reactions and are suitable for patients with unrequited love accompanied by insomnia or eating disorders. Regular exercise can help regulate dopamine levels in daily life, and it is recommended to engage in aerobic exercise three times a week in conjunction with soothing activities such as yoga. Establish a diverse social support network to avoid excessive analysis of each other's behavioral details. If there is a continuous sudden change in weight, persistent insomnia, or a tendency towards self harm, it is recommended to seek timely intervention from a psychologist. Moderate increase in foods rich in tryptophan, such as bananas and oats, in diet can help maintain emotional stability.