Q : What is intimacy?

A : Intimacy is how you close you are to your partner in the most important close one-on-one relationship, such as the one with your spouse, or important other. For children, parents represent an important relationship critical to their growth and development.

Q: Why do we end up fighting after having had wonderful time together? On the way home from fun weekend trips or after a nice evening dining out in town, we find ourselves arguing over nothing, spoiling everything.

A: Increased intimacy provokes defensive reactions, such as anxiety, anger, physical symptoms, depression, and psychosis in "defensive" individuals, who are threatened by escalating closeness. To become closer to another human being requires that you and your partner overcome these defensive reactions to increased intimacy. Next time you are riding home and become hostile after a good night, remind yourself that it is your defenses that are acting up. Take a moment of silence or laugh at your own defenses. Recognize that your irritability is your normal reaction to increased intimacy. It is a good stress! Now act in ways to further enhance your relationship, rather than sabotaging it.

Q: When I want to become closer to a man, I seem to do everything wrong. I am difficult, I purposely try to discourage a potential boyfriend and tell him that I am already with someone else. I really do want to have a relationship. What is going on?

A: That people typically fear most what they desperately need to be happy is neither surprising nor unusual. Behind it lies a mechanism of defense used by the mind to protect itself from potential harm and ensure its "self-preservation." When a person experiences closeness, that person experiences the accompanying "fear" that it may not last. This fear of eventual loss, rejection, or betrayal is so powerful that it mobilizes the mind to use its best resources to prevent or protect itself from such potential disappointment and loss. Your challenge is not to avoid your fear, but to become closer in spite of it. To do so, you will need to overcome your fear of intimacy.