‘These are the six ingredients needed to make a thriving and lasting relationship’

Psychologist and relationship expert Dr Sara Nasserzadeh thinks it’s time we re-examine our beliefs about romantic love by focusing on six ingredients that cultivate lasting attachments

Dr Sara Nasserzadeh is the author of Love by Design

Dr Sara Nasserzadeh

‘I didn’t start out as a researcher. I went to graduate school to become a couples counsellor and psychosexual therapist, and I began working with couples in private practice in London. But as my clinical practice developed, I realised that I was not the only one with unanswered questions: How do you know when you’ve found the one? What should you look for in a partner? What really matters?

That’s when I decided to devote my academic life to studying relationships of all kinds, from bedrooms to boardrooms. I began my study on what would become the Emergent Love Model because I wanted real, evidence-informed answers to my questions about how to cultivate love in committed coupledom. I was looking for a model for loving relationships that included a sense of individual agency, choice and creativity.