A Conceptual History of Erotomania

History of Psychiatry
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Erotomania: a conceptual history

G.E. Berrios and N. Kennedy
History of Psychiatry 2002; 13; 381
DOI: 10.1177/0957154X0201305202
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381
Erotomania:
conceptual history
G. E. BERRIOS* and N. KENNEDY
Four historical convergences are identified in the history of erotomania.

to the first, which lasted from Classical times to the early eighteenth
erotomania
was a general disease caused by unrequited love. According
century,
to the second,
erotomania was a disease of excessive physical love
(nymphomania); this view remained active well into the nineteenth century.
The third convergence focuses on the view that erotomania is a form of mental
disorder, and this was held throughout the twentieth century. The fourth and
current definition (a development of the third stage) sees erotomania as a the
delusional belief of being loved by someone else. Differences between AngloSaxon and French views cast doubt on the meaning or coherence of the muchabused English eponym de Clérambault syndrome. Erotomania is a construct,
a mirror reflecting Western views on spiritual and physical love, sex, and gender
inequality and abuse. On account of this, it is unlikely that there will ever be a
final, scientific definition rendering erotomania into a natural kind and
making it susceptible to brain localization and biological treatment.
According
Erotomania is currently defined by DSM-IV as: a delusion that another

person, usually of higher social status, is in love with the patient (APA,
1994). Regarded by others as broader than a delusion, erotomania has also
been called de Cl~rambaults syndrome (Enoch and Trethowan, 1991).
Since the late nineteenth century little that is new has been said on the
clinical aspects of erotomania and even less on its history. For example, a
distinction between primary and secondary erotomania that was made not
long ago (Hollender and Callahan, 1978; Garland and McGennis, 1998)
had, in fact, first been discussed by Ball (1883) over a 100 years ago. The
same is the case with recently suggested operational criteria (Ellis and
Mellsop, 1885; Gillet, Eminson and Hassanyeh, 1990) which repeat an
analysis made by Portemer (1902).
* Address for correspondence: Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Level 4,

Addenbrookes Hospital (Box 189), Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 2QQ, UK. E-mail: geb11@cam.ac.uk

382
These minor trespasses by non-historians can be easily forgiven for, in fact,

the official history of erotomania bears little relation to the documentary
evidence and often confuses the history of the term with that of the concepts
it refers to (Enoch and Trethowan, 1991). The quality of the historical
sources also gives the lie to the claim that during the nineteenth century
there was no systematic understanding of erotomania and that it all started
with Kraepelin (Segal, 1989: 1262). Rudden, Sweeney and Frances (1990)
are right in saying that erotomania is a symptom in search of adequate
conceptualization but give no hint as to how such adequacy is to be
achieved. Based on a study of the primary sources, and using modern historiographical techniques, this paper proposes a new hypothesis for the historical
development of erotomania.
Matters
historiographical
Good historiographical practice enjoins that the history of the word erotomania
be distinguished from the history of its concepts and target behaviours (Berrios,
1994). The moment at which all three converge is usually reported as that in
which the particular clinical phenomenon was first discovered. Things are
more complicated than that, but the historical analysis of such convergences
often provides an explanation of how and why the symptom in question was
constructed in the first place (Berrios, 1996). Hence a complete account of
erotomania should include the three histories mentioned above, in addition
to attending to concepts and mores, such as ongoing views on love (Casas,
1930), pudor (Bonilla, 1964) and sexuality (Foucault, 1976).
The word erotomania
One of the earliest usages of 8pMTO)J.avta (raving love) has been traced to
Plutarch (Jones, 1994) although excellent descriptions of the consequences
of excessive love can [also] be found in Plaute, Paul Aegineta, Galen, Valerio
Maximus, Amatus Lusitanus, Valleriola, Sennert, etc. [later] Tulpius reported
the case of someone whose love precipitated a cataleptic attack; and Manget
of another who developed a high fever (Diderot and DAlambert, 1754).
This primigenial sense of erotomania is still present in the work of Jerome
Gaub (Rather, 1965) who reported that Perdiccas:
inflamed by love of Phila, the concubine of the king his father, had
abandoned all hope of ever possessing her, and having restrained his
ardour within, is said to have fallen seriously ill. Nor did he recover until
Hippocrates shrewdly observed that as often as Phila came by the pulse
beat of the invalid altered ...
(There have been at least three kings called Perdiccas; the one referred to
by Gaub was a contemporary of Hippocrates and can be assumed to be

383
Perdiccas
II, the
(Smith, 1869).)
son
of and
successor to
Alexander
I, King of Macedonia
Erotomania came into French medical terminology by 1741 (Rey, 1995),

and soon afterwards the Dictionnaire de lAcadmie franaise ( 1762) defined it
as: Tem2e de Mdecine; dlire amoureux. Grimm and Grimm ( 1854), in turn,
reported a late eighteenth-century German usage of an equivalent term,
Liebeswuth, by Wieland and Goethe. The Oxford English Dictionary ( 1992)
gives 1874 as the year in which erotomania appeared in the English language.
This is inaccurate as Mayne (1860: 318) defined it before that time as: term
for melancholy, or madness, that is caused by love. In spite of its allusive
richness, the history of the word erotomania provides only the frame within
which the changes in concepts and referents can be analysed.
The concepts of erotomania
Four historical definitions of erotomania can be identified: unrequited love
leading to general disease, the practice of excessive physical love,
unrequited love as a form of mental disease, and the belief of being .loved
by someone else (current meaning). Although appearing in successive
historical stages, the meanings on occasions have overlapped.
general disease caused by unrequited love

Plutarchs definition of erotomania (Jones, 1994) governed Classical views.
His contemporary Aretxus (1856: 102) reported the case of a certain
person, incurably affected, [who] fell in love with a girl; and when the
physicians could bring him no relief, love cured him. Aretacus adds:
Stage
l:
But I think that he was originally in love, and that he was dejected and
spiritless from being unsuccessful with the girl, and appeared to the
common people to be melancholic. He then did not know that he was in
love; but when he imparted the love to the girl, he ceased from his
dejection ...
is
The medical view that unspoken lovesickness correlates with

equally ancient. Galen wrote:
rapid pulse
suffering from one of two things: either from a melancholia

dependent on black bile, or else trouble about something she was unwilling
to confess ... After I had diagnosed that there was no bodily trouble and
that the woman was suffering from some mental uneasiness ... somebody
came from the theatre and said that he had seen Pylades dancing; then
both her expression and the colour of her face changed ... and I noticed
that the pulse had become extremely irregular ... Thus I found out that
the woman was in love with Pylades ... (Brock, 1929: 213-14).
she
was
Although accepting
relationship
between disease and love, Caelius

384
Aurelianus (1950: 557-9) took

be managed:
different view of how the
problem should
hold that love is a proper remedy for madness ... they

of the obvious truth that in many cases love is the very
cause of it (furoris arnor fuerit causa). Thus, one man through love for
Proserpina sought to enter the lower world ... another threw himself into
the sea because of his longing for the sea nymph Amphitrite ... And
surely it is absurd and wrong to recommend, of ail the remedies for the
disease, the very thing that you are trying to treat ...
some
physicians
are not aware
The view of erotomania as unrequited love leading to general disease

into medieval Europe via Arabic medicine. Avicennas Canon (1930:
carries a typical description:
came
321)
the lovers pulse is variable and irregular, especially when he sees the
object of his affections, or hears her name, or gets tidings of her. In this
way one can discover, in the case of the one who conceals his love and the
name of his beloved, who is the object of his passion.
This view survived untouched until the middle of the seventeenth century:
it is a vulgar and most common observation, that if any one once being
taken with the aspect and conversation of a woman, begins inwardly to be
love sick for her, and to desire her earnestly, and for his most devoted
affection gets nothing but denials and contempt, unless he be upheld by a
very strong reason, or being seized by other affections, be turned another
way, as it were, there is great danger lest he fall into a love-melancholy;
with which passion if he happen to be affected presently he seems
transformed from himself into a living statue, as it were, he thinks or
speaks of nothing but his mistress; he seeks to put himself upon any of the
great dangers of life and fortune for her sake; mean while he does not only
neglect the care of domestick [sic] or publick [sic] concerns, or even of his
own salvation but, being frustrated of his desire, often layes [sic] violent
hands on himself ... (Willis, 1685: 475-6).
Likewise, in France, erotomanie
quelque chose.... Ce
(Furetiere, 1690).
pour
was
defined as une passion excessive quon a

a aime cette fille jusqud la manie.
gar~on
It can be concluded that up to the seventeenth century, the view that

erotomania was a disease of unrequited love predominated. Disease should be
interpreted here in the widest possible sense to include all manner of physical
complaints; and rapid pulse, of which the victim was unaware, constituted an
important marker of it. The endurance of this first meaning should not be a
cause of wonder, for Galenism, under whose protection erotomania was to
journey, lasted well into the seventeenth century (Temkin, 1973).
Stage 2: the practice of excessive physical love

By the middle of the eighteenth century, however,
erotomania
began

to mean
385
that form of madness caused by an excess of sexual appetite that leads to the
belief that sex is the supreme objective enslaving the person to its practice. It
is a form of melancholia, a true disease; it is what Willis called erotomania and
Sennert ainor insanus. (Diderot & DAlambert, 1754; original italics).
Those a~iicted by erotomania are no longer in platonic love with a
specific other; all they want is to indulge in indiscriminate physical sex.
Platonic love has been variously defined, the most common being love or
affection for one of the opposite sex, of a purely spiritual character, and free
from sensual desire. (OED, 1992; for a description of the concept itself, see
Gould, 1963.) By the second half of the eighteenth century nymphomania or
satyriasis had become the prototype of erotomania and they were listed in all
the great eighteenth century nosologies. For example, Boissier de Sauvages
and Sagar classified the two conditions under Morositates (cupiditates aut
aversationes depravatae); and Linn6 under Pathetici (satyriasis = deside?ium
Veneris enorme; erotomania = desideriwn Amantium pudicum) (Cullen, 1803).
Nymphomania as a localized disorder

Cullen (1827: 332) proposed that nymphomania
classified as localized disorders of the genital organs:
and
satyriasis should be
Class IV: Locales
(partis, non totius corporis, affectio)

Order II: Dysorexiae
Section 1: Appetitus erroneus vel deficiens:
104. Z (In rnaribus effrcenis venetis cupiditas). There were 2
species of satyriasis, juvenilis and furens.
105. Nymphomania (In f&oelig;nzinis effrcenis veneris cupiditas). There
was one species of nymphomania with four variations,
salacitas, furibunda, fervor uteri and pruriginosa.
Additional research is needed to explain why, in

conditions, Cullen (1827, Vol. 2: 330) decided
concept of neuroses which he defined as:
regard to these two specific

to depart from his general
preternatural affections
of sense and motion which are without

part of the primary disease and all those which do not depend
upon a topical affection of the organs, but upon a more general affection
of the nervous system, and of those powers of the system upon which
sense and motion more specially depend.
all those
pyrexia,
as
In years to come, the aetiological shift entailed by such a departure was to be

used as a rationale for atrocious surgical treatments such as amputations of
the clitoris and labia minora (Braun, 1865).
Another defender of the localized disorder view of nymphomania was de
Bienville (1771) whose book went through various editions and was also

386
translated into English and German. He defined uterine furor as a malignant

disorder characterized by a severe increase in the need for sexual intercourse
in females, leading to melancholia, mania and eventually dementia:
nymphomania can be defined as a disorganized movement of the fibres in

the female organs. In difference to other diseases, which have acute onset
and show all their malignant symptoms from the start, nymphomania
conceals itself under an apparent calm and thus its danger may not be
even perceived by the sufferer. Sometimes the patient has a foot on the
grave and cannot see the danger; it is like a snake sneaking into her heart
young virgins who have prematurely fallen in love may be caught by
but married woman are not free from this danger either
surprise
particularly if they are married to a weak or temperate man or to someone
who is cold and does not enjoy the delicacies of sex. (p. 40)
...
...
De Bienville (1771: 44-5) was astonished to notice that all of the great
Moschio,
physicians of antiquity [had] kept silent about uterine furor.
Greek physician, called the disorder satyriasis, others metromania and
erotomania (which means the mania of love). All these terms are arbitrary
and I shall continue calling it nymphomania for its central feature is uterine
...
furor.
Nymphomania as a neurosis
Not all agreed with the hypothesis that nymphomania was a specific disorder
of the genital organs; for example, one of the French translators of Cullen,
classified it as a neurosis of generation (Pinel, 1813) . It would be anachronistic,
however, to interpret Cullens concept of neurosis as entailing an organic
or neurobiological view of mental disease in the current sense of the term.
This is because the concept of nervous system it is based on (see definition
above) has little relation with current views on the central nervous system
(L6pez Pinero, 1983). This is one of the reasons why, by the end of the
nineteenth century, the concept of neurosis was so easily converted into a
psychological one.
Together with masturbation or onanism (Tissot, 1781; Stengers & Van
Neck, 1984; Duch6, 1994), nymphomania became an object of moral panic
in Western Europe, and its medicalization was rushed through. Here moral
panic means an attitude of exaggerated revulsion and fear towards a
disease (often related to sexual behaviour) shown by certain sectors of the
population. Scientifically unwarranted and stridently driven by the popular
media, a moral panic finds its ideologists in religious and pressure groups
who seize the opportunity to try to impose their own beliefs. On occasions,
this agitation may cause retrograde legislation to be enacted. Examples of
moral panics are the fear of neurosyphilis during the nineteenth century and,
currently, HIV. Although court scientists often provide quick justifications,
the real engine for moral panics must be sought in deep-seated fears and

387
prejudices (usually about sex) and in bids by social cliques to gain moral
control upon society. The concept of moral panic helps to understand earlier
European attitudes towards masturbation, satyriasis and nymphomania, and
the terrible treatments that were meted out to women believed to be suffering
from the latter.
Exaggerated claims are characteristic of moral panic. In the case of selfabuse and nymphomania it was claimed that it was only a matter of time
before total social disintegration took place. The level of exaggeration can be
gauged by the observation that the most vociferous among the nineteenthcentury alienists had not many examples to report! This is so for Krafft-Ebing
(1931: 486) who could only admonish: chronic conditions of nymphomania
are apt to weaken public morality and lead to offences against decency. Woe
uiito the man who falls into the meshes of such an insatiable Messalina, whose
sexual appetite is never appeased ... (our italics). Benedict Morel was more
honest when he admitted that in his long professional life had seen only three
cases of nymphomania (Bouchereau, 1878: 823). This may explain why
nineteenth-century textbook writers had to borrow each others cases. It is
interesting to note that there is little difference between the Messalina
invective used by Krafft Ebing and current rhetoric against pornographic
material (see the thoughtful analysis by Stoller, 1991 ) .
The nineteenth century was particularly fertile in the coining of generic
medical categories for the erotomanias, homosexuality and other practices.
These included perversion (Lanteri-Laura, 1979; Huertas, 1990), 1amour
morbide (Laurent, 1891), lrotisme (Legrand du Saulle, 1864) and
psychopathia sexualis (1-,rafft-Ebing, 1931). As Wettley (1959) showed, these
medical categories provided the pabulum for the science of sexuality that
was to develop in later years. (On the so-called Scientia sexualis, see Foucault,
1976: 71-98).
The scientific claims made in regard to these new diseases contrast sharply
with the coy, moralizing and (often) hypocritical tone of the medical
literature of the day. For example, Laurent (1891: 107) wrote: Le lecteur
me pardonnera la crudite des faits que je vais rapporter. Jai voulu peindre un
triste milieu et fletrir linfme proxnte qui livre au vieillard lascif la jeune
fille naive et sans defense. Le savant ne doit reculer devant aucun document
... (our italics). And Legrand du Saulle (1864: 486): Nous aurons
inevitablement loccasion dexposer des faits et de reproduire des observations
capables dalarmer certaines susceptibilites; mais il na dependu de nous de
la science est comme le feu, elle purifi tout
rendre le sujet moins scabreux
Yet
others alienists like Krafft-Ebing (1931)
ce quelle touche. (our italics)
felt oblige to break into macaronic Latin when the topic became scabreux. Ey
(1950: 233) was right in losing patience with this attitude:
...
Letude de la perversite et des perversions exige quen soit exclue toute

hypocrisie qui risque den masquer la nature. En effet, magistrats,

388
moralistes et psychiatres ont parfois tendance a placer de tels ecarts du
comportement moral et social hors de la nature, soit en les considerant
comme un pche contre nature soit en y voyant 1effet dun processus
morbide cr6ateur de tendances heterogenes a la nature humaine.
Nymphomania
and
degeneration theory
By the second half of the nineteenth century, however, a new view on

nymphomania was introduced: La nymphomane et le satyre sont
r6guli6rement des hereditaires degeneres. (Dallemagne, 1895: 528). There
were three new levels of meaning in this view. One was the predictable
application of degeneration theory to the erotomaniac disorders; more
deeply, there was the attempt to transfer these conditions from the (by then)
large and indiscriminate group of the insanities to a new type of disorder which
(rather anachronistically) one might want to call proto-personality disorders.
The third and deepest meaning, however, remained the moralizing one, that
erotomaniac disorders were objectionable forms of behaviour.
A Roman Catholic, Morel (1857) modelled his theory of degeneration on
the myth of the Fall (Toctme, 1970: 12); historians have distinguished
between Biblical, Ethnical and Muslim versions of the latter, defining the
Biblical Fall
of disobedience to God which is narrated with its

(Denney, 1912: 701). Genil-Perrin (1913: 52)
was already aware that there was a religious background to Morels ideas:
1ouvrage [i.e. Morels Traite de Dgnrescence] souvre sur un postulatum
religieux. On en trouve facilement la raison dans 1education premier de
1auteur
Morel place sa conception sous 1autorite de la Gen~se ....
Thus, degenerationists conceived of nymphomania as a disorder of the
personality, affecting women whose very soul was being visited by the sins of
their grandfathers. Common sins were neurosyphilis and alcoholism. During
the nineteenth century it was believed that abuse of alcohol in one generation
led to neurosis, madness and dementia in later ones (Milliet, 1901).
A final change took place towards the end of the nineteenth century with
the development of the syndromatic view of nymphomania:
as:
first
act
consequences in Genesis 3
...
by [nymphomania] is meant an irresistible and insatiable need for the

sexual act affecting women. Like satyriasis, it is a symptom of many
diseases that may have different aetiology and localization. Some authors
believe it to result from disease of the womb; others believe it to be a
disease of the brain, and characterize it as a form of impulsive madness. If
the latter, it is divided into primary and secondary. In our opinion, all
these views are irrelevant for they depend upon fashions in science and
change as the latter changes. (Bouchereau, 1878: 822; our italics)
To summarize, the second stage in the history of erotomania was
characterized by what has herewith been called the practice of excessive
physical love. As such erotomania was defined as an inordinate increase in

389
carnal desire. Nymphomania thus became the nosological flagship of erotomania and this remained so well into nineteenth century in spite of the fact
that the 1820s a new view, namely, that erotomania was unrequited love
leading to mental disorder made its appearance. Thus, throughout the
nineteenth century, nymphomania was still considered as an object of moral
fear and was made the target of extraordinary treatments.
To render easier the coexistence of the two views, writers took pains to
differentiate between erotomania and primary nymphomania: the former
was defined as a mental disorder (i.e., monomania) and the latter as a
localized pathology of the genitals. In the event, nymphomania was redefined
as a mere symptom (to be found in a multitude of mental disorders) and by
the First World War was no longer used as a diagnostic category.
Stage 3: unrequited love as a form of mental disease

In 1810 E. Zeiler, a criminologist from Vienna, reported the
insane
case
of
who fancied that many women were in love with him.

to believe that a young woman had fallen for him but
that their union was being impeded by the machinations of another, older
woman.
At this moment, his narcissistic melancholia became an
amorous one. In the event, he killed both women in a theatre. (Stooss,
an
man
Then, he started
1912).
interpretation marked the appearance of a new view of erotomania,

namely, that it was a form of partial madness (third stage). During the first
half of the nineteenth century, the salient category in this regard was that of
monomania (Goldstein, 1987).
Zeilers
Erotomania
as a
monomania
Esquirol (1838: 347) declared
erotomania
form of monomania:
erotomania is a chronic cerebral disease, characterized by an excessive

love for an object either known or imaginary; it is a disease of the
imagination and is accompanied by an error of judgement. Amorous ideas
in this mental disorder are as fixed and dominant as religious ideas will be
in theomania or religious lypemania. Erotomania differs essentially from
nymphomania and satyriasis. The latter originate from an irritation of the
reproductive organs that reaches the brain; in erotomania love is all in the
head; the nymphomaniac and the satyromaniac are victims of a physical
disorder; the erotomaniac is the victim of his imagination. (our italics)
Monomania was the first workable clinical counterpart of the older forensic
notion of partial insanity (Kageyama, 1984). Although it contributed to the
shaping of the current concept of psychosis (Berrios, 198?a), it turned out
to be, in the event, a transitional concept. The latter is defined as a clinical
category that helps to carry clinical phenomena from one (usually older)

390
which tends to last for only a relatively short time.
thus carried by monomania from the old eighteenth-century
nosology to the view that it was a form of partial mental disorder, as Esquirol
poetically put it, a disease of the imagination.
Thus, by the middle of the nineteenth century, when Falret (1864) and
others challenged the usefulness of monomania, the position and meaning of
erotomania were threatened; and when, by the 1880s, monomania had all
but disappeared (Linas, 1874), it was time for erotomania to change its
status: this it did (as many of its sister monomanias had to) and became a
plain delusion.
From the start, Esquirols proposal that erotomania was a monomania and
that it should be separated from nymphomania (on the grounds that the
latter was a localized disorder of the genital organs) was not received
favourably by clinicians, who on account of their religious convictions did
not want the boundaries between bad and mad to be blurred. For example,
in an early work, Morel (1853) argued that the two behaviours differed only in
terms of degree and opposed the medicalization of erotomania: Erotomania
must not be separated from nymphomania. In saying that the former is just a
disorder of imagination one confuses crime with madness. To differentiate
badness from madness, Morel (1853: 256) advised that three questions
should be asked: Has there been an amorous passion before the onset of the
disease? Are the depraved tendencies shown by the patient related to her
character rather than to any disease? Are the erotic ideas just a transformation of early signs of dementia? (By dementia Morel did not mean
organic dementia in the current sense of the term but a chronic state of
madness; see Berrios, 1987b). Renaudin (1854) expressed a similar
sentiment: in spite of all efforts to spintuali*ze this delusion [erotomania], and
however separated it might seem at first sight from all the physical components
[nymphomania], we cannot ignore the general interdependence of these two
aspects of our existence.
The view that, like monomania (Saussure, 1946), erotomania could lead
to crime stretches from Marc to Portemer. In his famous forensic textbook,
Marc (1840) included a chapter on Erotic monomania or erotomania &
aidoimania (laidoiomanie ou fureur genitale). Esquirols definition, Marc
believed, provided no criteria to differentiate excessive love from erotic
monomania, or erotomania from aidiomania (ai8ov = pudenda). (The latter
was a euphemism coined by Marc for nymphomania.) In the female, erotomania became complicated by hysteria and in the male by hypochondriasis.
nosology
to a new one
Erotomania
was
Because erotomania affected the emotions and the will (not the intellect),
it could be feigned. In practice, all these conditions could be confused and it
was difficult for the courts to decide on what was what (Marc, 1840: 182-
221).
Picking up on Marcs themes, Legrand du Saulle (1864: 485-534) proposed

the existence of a broader category, lerorisrne to include erotomania proper,

391
due to unrequited love, satyriasis, nymphomania, erotic perversions

and even the sexual misdemeanours caused by senile dementia. Lastly,
Portemer (1902: 176-7), at the turn of the twentiety century, also concentrated
on the forensic aspects:
insanity
Under the influence of such obsession, the erotomaniac becomes: (a) an

amorous stalker: he can mercilessly pursue the object of his love, and from
writing and mild importuning he may progress on to direct approaches,
aggression and criminal acts, (b) persecuted stalker: the patient believes
that all the obstacles he finds are due to the influence of some one on
whom he plans to take vengeance.... Erotomania has a progressive and
chronic course and may end up in dementia although not because it
causes it. Less commonly it may have an acute course. (erotic fever of
Lorry;
our
italics)
The next important change in the concept of erotomania appeared in the

work of Trelat ( 1861 ) who defined erotomania as a form of folie lucide (insanity
with insight) and, according to whether it followed an ongoing insanity or
was on its own, he divided it into symptomatic (secondary) and essential
(primary). This differentiation helped erotomania to survive the ~fall of
monomania:
erotomania must not be confused with nymphomania or satyromania
which arise from the reproductive organs and are a perversion of the
genital instinct; they are exclusively about the pleasures of the flesh and
lead to licentiousness and shameful behaviour. Erotomania, on the
contrary, is love felt for someone real or imagined or for an inanimate object,
which is both pure, chaste and disinterested but also excessive and immoderate.
In this mental disorder, the amorous ideas are fixed, dominant and often
exclusive. As Esquirol has stated, the disease is only in the head for it is
just a disorder of the imagination. The erotomaniac lives in a continuous
state of exaltation and emotion, absorbed in the contemplation of his
beloved, worshipping it, often in secret. He has no other worry or
preoccupation and to dedicate himself fully to the object of his love he
will leave home, forget his friends and abandon his job neglecting his own
interests. He withdraws into solitude, writes a great deal expressing his
emotions in poetry and prose and cries copiously ... (Linas, 1874: 170-1;
our
italics)
Lamour morbide (Laurent, 1891 ), subtitled Etude de Psychologie Pathologique,

is the last great book on erotomania during the third period and marks its
culmination. In it Laurent writes on the concept of love and its distortions
during disease, and he includes chapters on morbid love in mental
retardation, the erotomanias, morbid jealousy, suicide for love, fetishism,
paedophilia, and treatment. The erotomaniac was
the prototype of a degenerate, suffering from morbid and obsessional love
whose fixed idea he accepted without argument. Like the astronomer,
...

392
who after discovering a new star cannot stop seeing it with his minds eye,
the erotomaniac cannot stop seeing his beloved ... the disease of the
erotomaniac resides in his brain; otherwise he experiences a chaste love
without any carnal desire. (pp. 131-2)
Erotomania
as a
delusion
By the early twentieth century, the view that erotomania was a delusion as
opposed to a form of partial madness had developed fast, and the need
arose to identify the type of delusion that it might be. S6rieux and Capgras
(1909), authors of one of the great books on delusion at the beginning of the
twentieth century, classified it as a dlire dinte~pretatiosi:
associated with ideas of jealousy, amorous delusions may persist for a long
time in some cases of delusions of interpretation: whether the love is
platonic or physical, it will depend upon the personality of the subject....
But the delusion may have as its object a person that the patient has never
seen but about whom he knows a great deal on account of mysterious
clues to which only he has the key ... (p. 115)
A similar view predominated in Germany and lasted up to World War I. For

example, Ernst Kretschmer (1918: 30-68) reported four cases suffering from
Der erotische Beziehungswahn alter Mdchen. (For an account of the German
debate on erotomania during this period, see Schachter, 1977.)
In summary, Stage 3 of the history of erotomania lasted for about a
century and is characterized by the view that unrequited love may cause
mental disease. In this sense, the meaning of erotomania changed somewhat
pari passu with changes in the definition of mental disorder and nosological
theory. Thus, it started as a form of partial madness (monomania), by the
1870s it fleetingly changed into paranoia (Krafft-Ebing, 1893, see below;
Bemer, 1965), and by the 1890s it had become a delusion. During the early
twentieth century, erotomania was reflecting this ambiguity.
Stage 4: the delusion of being loved by someone else

By suggesting that the distinctive feature of erotomania was a delusional
attitude in relation to other person rather than the quality and quantity of
erotic behaviour per se, Benjamin Ball (1883: 37-8) heralded in the fourth
(and current) definition of erotomania:
The loved one becomes the object of special attention and persecution:
any gesture, look or words becomes evidence of his/her love for the
patient and any clue is immediately seized upon ... an advert in the
paper reads from Mary to John, it means that the loved one is trying to
communicate via a pseudonym. A spinster notices that a man looks at her
and she concludes: if he looked at me he loves me. From then on, they
cease to persecute their loved one and start believing that he/she is
persecuting them.

393
In his medical
dissertation, R. Leroy (1896) took a step further: tainted by

the
degeneration,
persecuted erotomaniac is in love with himself but because
he is devoid of judgement he believes that some one else is in love with him
and proceeds to romance about it. Krafft-Ebing (1893: 441-2) suggested
that erotomania was a late onset paranoia occurring in (hereditarily) tainted
subjects who since early in life had shown:
awkward social skills, particularly when relating to those of the opposite
sex ... there is a sentimental habit since puberty, they create an ideal
partner, or fall for an older person who they have barely met. They may
experience dreamy, languid and hypochondriacal longings for her ... one
day they see in a person of high society the incarnation of their ideal ...
here the disease starts. They notice in the behaviour of the person in
question hints and evidence that she is not indifferent. Information in
newspapers concerning other people is interpreted as coming from her.
Finally, hallucinations start and they come into hallucinatory relation with
the object of their love. At the same time, there are illusions. In the
conversation of others they hear references to the love affair
(our italics)
...
The interesting clinical observation by I, rafft-Ebing that hallucinations may

be a feature of erotomania has since been neglected. At night a male patient
reported by Krafft-Ebing (1893: 443) heard voices telling him to go upstairs
to the baroness and he also heard the baron saying we wish to please him
and give him Resi as a wife. As opposed to this, hallucinations were totally
absent from the clinical picture in the case of a female patient who believed
that a high-ranking officer was in love with her (Krafft-Ebing, 1893: 446).
Kraepelin (1921: 245-8) followed suit. He classified erotomania as a form
of paranoiac megalomania and emphasized its delusional component:
the
patient perceives that a person of the other sex, distinguished really or

presumedly by high position, is kindly disposed to him and shows him
attention which cannot be misunderstood ... a female patient noticed
that the reigning sovereign bowed with special respect to her in the
theatre ... others receive information about the affair in circuitous ways
by figurative allusions ... or his love is an open secret and an object of
universal interest
psetcdornenrories are frequently mixed with this
hallucinations
not infrequently are [also] associated with the
dreamy
delusion, the feeling of a kiss in sleep and similar things ... (our italics)
...
...
The clinical observation that erotomaniac patients may suffer from pararnnesias
(pseudomemories) has also been neglected. In all probability this is due to
the fact that during the twentieth century the concept of delusion of
memory fell by the conceptual wayside. Indeed, it is little known that
Kraepelin was one of its creators (Markovd & Berrios, 2000).
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Portemer (1902: 175-6) wrote
an important book on erotomania:
Erotomania is
form of morbid love characterized
by
an
essentially

394
idealized and psychical form of it. There is no carnal appetite. It is a
sexual anomaly by default. It belongs to the group of monomanias
(Esquirol) and is characterized by a primitive disorder of the intellect
(Baillarger). Only the centre of ideation, situated in the frontal area, is
involved (Magnan). Like other sexual anomalies, erotomania must be
considered, according to Morel (1857) as a form of degeneration. In fact
it is not difficult to find in erotomaniacs some of the psychological and
physical stigmata of degeneration. Like all delusional ideas supervening
upon a background of degeneration, that of the erotomaniac is essentially
obsessional and impulsive.... An ideal is first formed in the mind and
when the patient believes to have found someone near it he is struck and
the obsession becomes implanted. Because all erotomaniacs are also
megalomaniacs, the ideal is always of a person of higher rank (queen,
princess, statesman), a supernatural or mystical being, or belonging to a

special class (priest, artist, etc.). In the erotomaniac, the belief that the
beloved is not indifferent to the patient is central to the obsession, indeed
that he/she actually loves the patient. Hence the patient will interpret
every behaviour of the other person, however hostile and
unfavourable,
as
further evidence of love.
This shift from the delusion of being in love to the delusion of being loved
culminated in Ferdi~res (1937) classic book Lroromanie: illusion delira~ate
dtre aim. From now on, the feelings and behaviour of the object of love
became the focus of the patients delusion. What led to this final shift? It has
been mentioned already that both Ball and Leroy had suggested a
mechanism for this change. During the early twentieth century, other
alienists took up this view, some developing it in interesting and almost
precious ways. De Clerambault was one of them.
De C16rambault
According to Elizabeth Renard (1942): by putting together an &dquo;erotomania

syndrome&dquo; characterized by precise symptoms and incurability, de Clerambault
provided its definitive description, for although well known, the features of
[this] disorder were dispersed and badly expressed in the literature. This is
right; the question, however, is whether the idiosyncratic and context-bound
views of de Clerambault can be (or have been) understood outside France
(Dalle, Edel & Fernandez, 1998). It is likely that they have not, as his
definitions of passion psychosis and delusion which are profoundly rooted
into the classical French views of delusional and paranoid states are
themselves very difficulty to explain, even by Frenchmen (Pichot, 1982).
However, there is little doubt that de Clerambaults views have had profound
influence in France itself. So much so that a year after his suicide in 1934 a
group of French medics decided to coin the eponym in his honour (Ferdi~re,
1937: 30).

395
The earliest documented intervention on erotomania by de Clrambault
dates back to 1913 when he is found commenting upon a paper by
Briand and Vinchon (1913) read at the Societe Clinique de Medicine
Mentale. It concerned two cases of what, at the time, was called women in
love with priests. De C16rambault knew the second case well and expressed
doubts as to whether she had a pure erotomaniac delusion, suggesting
instead that she entertained a wider vindicatory delusional system against the
(1942)
background of a hysterical personality: [she was] vain, changeable, suggestible

and always locked onto the ongoing moment (de Clerambault, 1942: 312).
The same year, he reported to the same Society the case of a man with
affective symptoms, a variety of delusions and an erotomaniac interest in
two sisters who he believed were in love with him: the case was not typical
of erotomania. The man believed that both sisters were in love with
him. Furthermore, he was not absolutely sure that the one he preferred loved
him, and he was happy to marry either. Lastly, as it is the rule in these cases,
he did not consider the women to be illogical or bad or anything. (de
Clerambault,
1942:
318)
After World War I, de Clerambault continued his interest in the topic and
in 1920 (together with Brousseau) he reported the case of a French woman
who believed that George V, the English king, was in love with her. This
paper contains a summary of his theoretical views: at the basis of erotomania
there is an lme1lt gnrateur, a delusional postulate that, in addition to the
belief of being loved, contains supporting perceptions, attitudes, emotions
and interpretations. In erotomania, pride is more important than love and
gives rise to the delusional postulate. Platonic love has little to do with
erotomania (de Clerambault, 1942: 325).
In 1921 de Clerambault delivered a short paper on the subject, and the
rapporteur of the Society intimated that a longer version was to appear in
A1lllales Mdico-Psychologiques (de Clrambault, 1942: 337). (The authors of
the present paper have been unable to find any such publication.)
Erotomaniac delusions, our author claimed, were not of the interpretative
type (one of the three types recognized in French psychiatry at the time) but
(together with vindicative delusions and morbid jealousy), belonged to a new
category called morbid delusions of passion (dlires passi01l11els 11l0rbides). It
could appear alone (autonome et pur) or be associated with other delusions
and developed in three stages: hope, vexation and grudge (stade despoir, stade
de depit, stade de rancU11e). To identify it properly, asking questions was not
enough but patients had to be encouraged to act out their delusion (en
interrogeant de tels maladesJ il ne suffit pas de les questionner, il faut encore les
actionner) (de Clrambault,
1942:
338).
In another paper de Clerambault discussed two cases and dealt with the
issue of differential diagnosis and with transitional states between benign and
morbid forms of delusions of passion. On occasions benign forms may
become morbid, in which case the patient needed hospital admission (de

396
1942: 346). (Nothing will be said here on de Clerambaults
process of differential diagnosis as the subtle, occasionally precious clinical
devices he used to this end would not make a great deal of sense to those not
au fait with the complex classification of delusional disorders reigning in
France during this period.) In the same year he reported yet another detailed
case of pure erotomania going through the stage of vexation. A new feature
was that it included an interview with the women who were the object of the
patients love! (In 1923 he reported this case as unimproved; de C16rambault,
Clerambault,
1942: 373.)
In 1923 de C16rambault published a final cluster of papers on erotomania
1942: 372) and gracefully accepted the proposal by Truelle
and Reboul-Lachaux that secondary erotomania was a better designation
than associated erotomania (de C16rambault, 1942: 370). He also reported
the case of a woman aged 55 whose pure erotomania had lasted for 37 years
(p. 406). There is, in addition, an important theoretical paper responding to
criticisms by Joseph Capgras which illustrates well the cultural specificity of de
Clerambaults ideas (p. 414). Lastly, there are two papers setting out the
boundaries of his concept of delusion or madness of passion (p. 423 and
p. 426, respectively). His plan of publishing a book on the subject never
materialized.
As mentioned above, de C16rambaults views on erotomania are locked
within French psychiatric culture, and to understand them a good command
is needed of a system of psychiatric ideas that even the current generation of
French psychiatrists find difficult to master. It is also clear that current
Anglo-Saxon views on erotomania (also dominant in France via translation
of DSM-IV; APA, 1994) take their cue not from the work of de Clerambault
but from earlier clinical descriptions, some going back to the nineteenth
century. If so, the eponym de Clerambaults syndrome poses something of a
paradox, for its current definition has little to do with his actual views.
Putting this right, however, would require rescuing and honouring old
French views on delusion, psychosis and indeed psychiatry that would clash
with those entertained in DSM-IV and ICD-10.
(de Clerambault,
Conclusions
This paper has presented a new historical hypothesis to account for the
construction of the clinical state currently called erotomania. The following
historiographical rules were adhered to: the history of the word erotomania
and that of the concepts and behaviours to which it referred in successive
historical periods were kept separate; and the locus of analysis were the
convergences, i.e., the historical moments when the three historical strands
came
together.
There have been four historical convergences. The period during which
each has been predominant has been called a stage. The boundaries

397
between stages
clear-cut, but such overlaps in meaning can be

and
cultural inertia. The first stage, during which
explained by conceptual
the definition of erotomania was that of a general disease caused by
unrequited love, stretched from Classical times to the early eighteenth
century. The second was characterized by a definition of erotomania as a
disease of excessive physical love (nymphomanialsatynasis); this lasted until
the beginning of the nineteenth century. The third stage was marked by the
belief that erotomania was a form of mental disorder; this stage lasted until
the turn of the twentieth century. The fourth and current stage revolves
around the view that erotomania is a delusional belief of being loved by
someone else.
Lastly, the work of de Clerambault was dealt with in some detail to show
that current definitions are connected to pre-de C16rambault ideas. This
suggests that the eponym de C16rambault syndrome is something of a
misnomer.
The lesson learned is that erotomania is a construct, a secular conceptual
mirror on which successive views of love, sex and mental disorder are
reflected. Hence, the belief that there is a final adequate conceptualization
of erotomania is a naive one. Views on the rational, emotional and ethical
boundaries of love and sex change pari passzc with whatever image of man
happens to be in fashion; science is just another subsystem of the latter.
This means that new definitions of erotomania will appear in the future, and
that all must be accepted with grace.
are
not
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A Conceptual History of Erotomania

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A Conceptual History of Erotomania

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History of Psychiatry

Erotomania: a conceptual history

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G. E. BERRIOS* and N. KENNEDY

Four historical convergences are identified in the history of erotomania.

Erotomania is currently defined by DSM-IV as: a delusion that another

* Address for correspondence: Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Level 4,

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These minor trespasses by non-historians can be easily forgiven for, in fact,

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Erotomania came into French medical terminology by 1741 (Rey, 1995),

general disease caused by unrequited love

The medical view that unspoken lovesickness correlates with

suffering from one of two things: either from a melancholia

between disease and love, Caelius

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Aurelianus (1950: 557-9) took

different view of how the

hold that love is a proper remedy for madness ... they

are not aware

The view of erotomania as unrequited love leading to general disease

Likewise, in France, erotomanie

defined as une passion excessive quon a

It can be concluded that up to the seventeenth century, the view that

Stage 2: the practice of excessive physical love

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Nymphomania as a localized disorder

Class IV: Locales

(partis, non totius corporis, affectio)

Additional research is needed to explain why, in

regard to these two specific

of sense and motion which are without

In years to come, the aetiological shift entailed by such a departure was to be

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translated into English and German. He defined uterine furor as a malignant

nymphomania can be defined as a disorganized movement of the fibres in

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Letude de la perversite et des perversions exige quen soit exclue toute

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By the second half of the nineteenth century, however, a new view on

of disobedience to God which is narrated with its

by [nymphomania] is meant an irresistible and insatiable need for the

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Stage 3: unrequited love as a form of mental disease

who fancied that many women were in love with him.

interpretation marked the appearance of a new view of erotomania,

Esquirol (1838: 347) declared

erotomania is a chronic cerebral disease, characterized by an excessive

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Picking up on Marcs themes, Legrand du Saulle (1864: 485-534) proposed

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due to unrequited love, satyriasis, nymphomania, erotic perversions

Under the influence of such obsession, the erotomaniac becomes: (a) an

The next important change in the concept of erotomania appeared in the

Lamour morbide (Laurent, 1891 ), subtitled Etude de Psychologie Pathologique,

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A similar view predominated in Germany and lasted up to World War I. For

Stage 4: the delusion of being loved by someone else

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dissertation, R. Leroy (1896) took a step further: tainted by

The interesting clinical observation by I, rafft-Ebing that hallucinations may

patient perceives that a person of the other sex, distinguished really or

form of morbid love characterized

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