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Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby is a licensed psychologist, licensed marriage and family therapist, board-certified coach, AAMFT clinical supervisor, host of the Love, Happiness, and Success Podcast and founder of Growing Self.
Picture this: You’re sitting in your therapist’s office, pouring your heart out (again) about your breakup. You’ve analyzed your childhood wounds, traced back your attachment style, and even considered your ex’s possible undiagnosed personality disorders (because, obviously, they must have one). And yet… you’re still obsessing over your ex, still hurting, and still feeling like you’re not moving forward.
Sound familiar? If so, you’re not alone. And here’s something that might shock you: Traditional therapy isn’t actually designed to help you heal from heartbreak.
Wait… what? Isn’t therapy supposed to be the go-to solution for getting over a breakup? Well, not exactly. Most therapists aren’t trained in breakup recovery. And even with the best intentions, talk therapy can actually keep you stuck if it focuses on the wrong things.
That’s exactly what I unpacked in a recent episode of Love, Happiness, and Success, where I pulled back the curtain on why therapy alone often doesn’t work for breakups—and what actually does.
Let’s dive in.
Therapy for Breakups
I’ll be the first to admit it—when I started my career as a therapist, I made this mistake, too. In the beginning, I did what most therapists do: I treated breakups like a mental health issue.
It wasn’t that I didn’t care or that I wasn’t trying. Quite the opposite—I desperately wanted to help my clients move forward. But like so many other therapists, my training was in diagnosing and treating mental health disorders, not guiding people through the natural (but painful) process of detaching from an ex.
So what happened? I did what I was taught:
- I looked for underlying mental health conditions (Was this depression? Anxiety? PTSD?)
- I explored attachment wounds and childhood trauma (Was their ex triggering old insecurities?)
- I encouraged grief processing (which is important, but only part of the equation)
All of this was interesting and sometimes insightful, but here’s the problem: Insight alone doesn’t heal heartbreak. My clients would leave therapy sessions feeling validated but still very much stuck—ruminating about their ex, craving contact, and unable to move forward.
And that’s when I realized something big: Heartbreak isn’t a disorder. It’s a biological and emotional process. And if we don’t treat it the right way, we get stuck in it.
The Science of Heartbreak: Why You Can’t Just “Get Over It”
Here’s the truth that most therapists don’t talk about: Your brain is designed to bond with people—and when that bond is broken, it reacts the same way it would to drug withdrawal.
This was a game-changing realization for me, and I have Dr. Helen Fisher to thank for it. Dr. Fisher, a brilliant evolutionary biologist, spent decades studying the neuroscience of love and attachment, and what she found was fascinating:
- Romantic love activates the same parts of the brain as addiction .
- Breakups trigger intense cravings and withdrawal symptoms, similar to quitting nicotine or opioids.
- Your brain literally fights to keep the attachment alive because, evolutionarily, staying connected to your “tribe” was a survival mechanism.
Translation? When your ex is gone, your midbrain (the part responsible for basic survival drives) freaks out. It pines, obsesses, and idealizes—all in a desperate attempt to “reconnect.”
So if you’re wondering, Why do I still miss my ex even though they treated me like garbage? or Why can’t I stop checking their social media even though I know it’s unhealthy?—this is why.And this is also why talking about your childhood wounds for months isn’t going to fix it. Your brain needs a structured recovery process to detach, reset, and move forward.
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