Helen Fisher, biography of a love expert

Helen Fisher is one of the people who knows the most about love from a scientific point of view. He has been studying this feeling for more than 30 years and his work is a great help to understand the twists and adventures associated with romantic love. Our protagonist belongs to that group of experts who has made an effort to understand love from a biochemical perspective.

Several of Helen Fischer’s books are world famous. They stand out among them Why We Love: Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love and The first sex. Both have changed the way we see love, relationships and gender issues.

This American biologist and anthropologist has carried out most of her research at Rutgers University, in New York (United States). Currently, Helen Fisher is the most cited researcher on love issues.

Who is Helen Fisher?

We don’t really know much about Helen Fisher’s biography.. We know that he was born in New York, on May 31, 1945. We also know that he studied at New York University and the University of Colorado. Likewise, he worked at various institutes, until he arrived at Rutgers University, where he has developed most of his work.

He is one of those people who are known more for his works than for his biography itself. He became a star at TED conferences between 2006 and 2008, especially. He has also been seen on television shows and documentaries that talk about love.

Although Helen Fisher has studied romantic love, her approaches are very different from those that most of us combine to talk about romantic love. From her perspective, this feeling is closely linked to the neurochemical reactions that occur in our nervous system.

Helen Fisher and love

More than 30 years ago, Helen Fisher set out to investigate what happens in people’s brains when we are in love. Also, of course, when we experience disappointment or have bitter love experiences. In his studies we see the fusion between his knowledge about our biology, but also about anthropology. The result is really interesting.

He proposed a very unique theory about romantic feeling. In his perspective, love would be essentially sensitive to three factors:

Lust. It has to do with sexual drive and libido.sexual attraction selective. This factor explains the great intensity that relationships have in their first stage.He attachment. It refers to the feeling of unity that arises with the couple, which has a higher level of depth and allows long-term relationships.

The basic postulates of Helen Fisher

In one of the many interviews they have done with Helen Fisher, they managed to get her to condense a good part of her theory into a group of basic postulates. Some of them are the following:

Love can be defined as a physiological need, an instinct and the result of a chemical flow in the brain.Romantic love works like an addictive drug. In a special way, in its first phase. The need that prevails in love is that of emotional union with the loved one. You can feel deep attachment to the stable partner and, at the same time, experience romantic love for another person, thus as sexual attraction to other individuals. Each experience is controlled by different areas of the brain that are not well connected to each other.You couldn’t experience romantic love for two people at the same time..Romantic love would last between 18 months and three years.Romance can be nurtured and maintained through shared new experiences., that are exciting and even somewhat dangerous. Women benefit less from casual sex and that is why they feel less attracted to it. All people in love are possessive. Jealousy is almost always the origin of abuse as a couple.Men are as passionate in love as women. Of every four people who commit suicide after ending a relationship, three are men.

These and many other theses are recorded in the works and lectures of Helen Fisher. She is one of those scientists who can be read with the same emotion as a good poet.. It is worth knowing his work.

Main Image Credits | Adam Timworth licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

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