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M y favorite model for relationships comes from the work of anthropologist Helen Fisher. She’s dedicated decades of her life and her career to studying and understanding love, intimacy and relationships. This post will cover her Three Loves Theory, a theory that I find incredibly helpful for understanding relationships. The premise of the Three Loves Theory is that not all love is experienced equally. Anyone with a fair amount of romantic/sexual experience could tell you that love and passion come in different flavors. With some people it’s intense and furious, with others it’s mellow and sensitive; with some it’s tumultuous with a lot of ups and downs, with others it’s slow and consistent over a long period of time. But this isn’t just theorizing. Scientists like Fisher have studied the cognitive and neurobiological processes underlying attraction and love, and they’ve begun to pinpoint different emotions that occur at different stages of romantic relationships. Through these stud...

M y favorite model for relationships comes from the work of anthropologist Helen Fisher. She’s dedicated decades of her life and her career to studying and understanding love, intimacy and relationships. This post will cover her Three Loves Theory, a theory that I find incredibly helpful for understanding relationships. The premise of the Three Loves Theory is that not all love is experienced equally. Anyone with a fair amount of romantic/sexual experience could tell you that love and passion come in different flavors. With some people it’s intense and furious, with others it’s mellow and sensitive; with some it’s tumultuous with a lot of ups and downs, with others it’s slow and consistent over a long period of time. But this isn’t just theorizing. Scientists like Fisher have studied the cognitive and neurobiological processes underlying attraction and love, and they’ve begun to pinpoint different emotions that occur at different stages of romantic relationships. Through these...