Dorothy Tennov

Dorothy Jane Tennow (August 29, 1928 – February 3, 2007), known as Dorothy Tennov, was an American psychologist who, in her 1979, book Love and Limerence – the Experience of Being in Love, introduced the term "limerence".

Early life and education

Tennov was born in Montgomery County, Alabama, to Lois Estelle Moore of Birmingham and Daniel Edgar Tennow, who had emigrated from the Russian Empire in 1914. She received her bachelor's degree from Brooklyn College and a Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut.

Career

Tennov was a professor of psychology at the University of Bridgeport for twenty years. She was also a student of the philosophy of science. Her professional interest in romantic love began when two young men told her that breakups had driven them to alcoholism and losing a semester at university, respectively. During her years of research into romantic love experiences, Tennov 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. Her assertion that the limerent object had to be a potential sexual partner was refuted by Lynn Willmott and Evie Bentley.

Tennov hypothesized that Henry VIII experienced limerence, while Don Juan probably did not, though he exploited women's feelings of limerence to satisfy his sex drive.

Publications

Tennov published several nonfiction books as well as a play about life in a nursing home, reviews of books on scientific subjects, presentations at scientific meetings, and essays. Her television credits included a PBS interview with the French novelist and essayist Simone de Beauvoir and an appearance in a 1998 BBC documentary, The Evolution of Desire.

• Psychotherapy: The Hazardous Cure; Thomas Y. Crowell Co.|Abelard-Schuman]]; 1975 (ISBN 0-200-04028-6)
• Super Self: A Woman's Guide to Self-management; Jove Pubns; 1978 (ISBN 978-0515045109)
• Love and Limerence; Scarborough House; 1979 (ISBN 0-8128-6286-4)
• Love and Limerence: the Experience of Being in Love; Scarborough House; 1999 (ISBN 978-0-8128-6286-7)
• A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It "Limerence": The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov; the Great American Publishing Society; 2005

Personal life

Tennov was married and had three sons; she divorced in 1961. From 1986, she lived in Millsboro, Delaware, where she lectured at the local senior learning academy and worked as a volunteer at the nursing home. Tennov died in 2007 in Harbeson, Delaware, at the age of 78.