fixation
n.an unhealthy or very strong interest in someone or something that you cannot stop thinking about. It is like being stuck on one idea or person.
n.an obsessive or unhealthy preoccupation with a specific person, object, or idea. Often used in psychological contexts to describe a failure to progress beyond a particular stage of development.
“He has a strange fixation on old clocks.”
“The media's fixation on the celebrity's private life often overshadowed her professional achievements.”
“The architect's career was defined by a lifelong fixation on natural light, leading to structures that prioritized glass and open spaces over traditional solid walls.”
Often takes the preposition 'on' or 'with' to indicate the object of interest.
Fixation typically collocates with 'on' or 'with', not 'for'.
“That fixation with sleep is actually making people's sleep worse, they warn.”
“On one level, Trump’s tariff fixation is a mystery.”
From Old French fixation. By surface analysis, fix + -ation.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.