Latest news with #MarisaCohen
New York Post
4 days ago
- Health
- New York Post
Love addiction and social media stalking could be frying your brain, study finds
Love's got people literally losing their minds. Folks who obsess over their romantic partners — also known as 'love addiction' — were more likely to report brain fog, memory problems and trouble focusing, a new study conducted by a group of Italian researchers found. Even the mildly lovesick felt scrambled, especially when social media was involved. Advertisement 3 Can't stop stalking your partner on Instagram? Experts say it's wrecking your focus and driving up your anxiety. 'It can certainly be psychologically, emotionally and neurologically draining,' said Dr. Marisa Cohen, a New York-based marriage and family therapist. 'They may start to experience withdrawal symptoms when removed from that person or relationship.' The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Behavioural Brain Research, surveyed 600 Italian adults between July 2022 and May 2023, more than 70% of whom were women, using validated, self-reported questionnaires on anxiety, depression, resilience, memory ability, attention and social media use. Advertisement Most participants were between 26 and 35 years old, and over two-thirds held a university degree. The researchers found a clear pattern: the more someone clung to their crush, the worse their attention span became. Higher love addiction scores were linked to increased anxiety, depression and mental fatigue. Heavy Instagram and TikTok use worsened symptoms. 3 Even people in happy relationships said they felt mentally 'off' when love took over their thoughts and screen time. highwaystarz – Advertisement 'People have much easier access to this window into their [partner's] life,' Cohen said. Scroll-happy users fueled jealousy by constantly stalking their partners online, sparking obsessive thoughts and wrecking their focus at work. Many said they felt mentally and emotionally 'off,' even while still in relationships. Dr. Sheri Meyers, Los Angeles-based relationship expert and therapist, calls it emotional sex — a psychological 'affair of the heart' that messes with your mind. 'You begin to channel the bulk of your emotions, hopes and desires onto the other person,' Meyers said. '[It] feels like romantic love but can lead us to act in ways that are contrary to our ideals, values and relationship goals and better judgment.' Advertisement 3 Being lovesick might actually fry your brain, according to a new study linking romance obsession to memory loss and brain fog. – The emotional rollercoaster, from longing to jealousy to withdrawal, can throw off the brain's reward system and lead to mood swings, obsessive thinking and mental burnout, she added. Dr. Ryan Rahm-Knigge, a Minnesota psychologist who researches compulsive sexual behavior, said while 'love addiction' isn't an official diagnosis, the study's findings echo clinical issues he sees in therapy. 'My experience is that these issues are more than heartbreak or desire,' he said. 'We see people suffering with feelings like their love pursuits or sexual behaviors or urges are out of control or in control of them.'
Yahoo
01-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Hanky Panky With Naughty AI Still Counts as Cheating, Therapist Says
Sexual relationships with AI chatbots have become all too common — but for some real-life partners, it still feels like cheating when it's happening behind their back. That's the takeaway from a recent HuffPost column in which Marisa Cohen, a licensed marriage and family therapist, affirmed that having intimate encounters with anyone — or anything — without your partner's consent is damaging to the relationship, point-blank. The piece was responding to a post on Reddit, which — though they're often anonymous and an exercise in creative fiction writing — served as an interesting jumping-off point to explore the ethics of the topic. In the post, which has since been deleted but copied in part by HuffPost, a woman described her sense of betrayal when she walked in on her husband of 14 years having phone sex with a talking chatbot that was "very tailored to his desires." "It felt like a knife went through me," the OP wrote, "and I couldn't stop shaking." An interesting wrinkle: the woman and her husband had agreed prior to tying the knot that "emotional cheating" was kosher as long as it wasn't physical. Still, the woman said she was "stung" that her hubby was having such sexual conversations with the chatbot "almost every night" — and even more so when he added that he talked to it for hours about non-sexual subjects too. Were he having those conversations with a human woman, that would technically be within the bounds of their relationship's rules. But for whatever reason, it seemed to bother the OP worse that her spouse was having his affair with a chatbot. "I know he's gonna say it's not a big deal no matter what," she wrote, "and I think this is what will upset me the most." Does the woman have a right to be upset? It depends on the nitty-gritty of her interpretation of her agreement with her husband, which is why ongoing communication is a staple of successful open relationships. That's important, because as Cohen points out, the situation represents a gray area. Is phone sex with an AI crossing the line into the "physical intimacy" with outside partners that they left off the table? It's a head-scratcher, and different reasonable people may well come to different conclusions. "What one partner views as engaging with AI in a completely acceptable way, another may view as cheating," the therapist told HuffPost. "This is something that must be discussed, so that both partners are aware of how the other feels." "People that are involved in emotional cheating are sharing experiences with another (in this case AI) at the expense of sharing these moments, memories, or insights with their partners," Cohen said. "This can create a distance between partners." It's also worth noting that when they first married, there was no way the woman could have expected the "emotional cheating" clause in her relationship — one that sounds pretty suspicious, or at least like a slippery slope — to include an AI chatbot, because such technology was neither widespread nor sophisticated at the time. And even if she had, those boundaries can change — as the OP noted, she'd also been upset when finding out her husband had been whacking it to porn earlier in their marriage. "It is important that both partners want to work on their relationship and that the emotional affair is acknowledged and ended," Cohen told HuffPost. "This becomes more complicated in this case, as the partners may have different beliefs as to whether cheating has occurred." More on chatbot relationships: Women With Body Image Issues Are Asking ChatGPT Something Terrible
