No wonder that people fear intimacy! I mean when you think about it, being intimate with another person, whether physically intimate or emotionally intimate, is one of the most demanding and challenging things that a human being can do.

Ironically, however, being in a relationship, which by its very nature requires intimacy of this kind, is also one of the most natural thing is that a human being can do.

So how is it then, we have ended up in a situation where so many of us fear intimacy, when it’s such a natural and satisfying state of being?

The problem seems to lie in the fact that our brain is so adaptable, and that we are born with the capacity to learn so much about ourselves and society, rather than depending on pre-established patterns of behavior as many animals do.

Our great capacity for learning from our environment in childhood is probably in a way our downfall;  for although we may be programmed to accept intimacy, and even to search it out, and perhaps also dependent on it for our growth, the truth is that good quality intimate relationships are hard to come by.

And nowhere is this more true than in childhood, where most parents are inadequately supported and perhaps inadequate in their own parenting skills.

Whether or not this is the product of our Western way of life, as opposed to a more traditional society in a village environment such as less-developed societies in Africa, say, is not really the point here. For some reason, we have ended up in a situation where our children are brought up in an environment that deprives them of the support of many people, and where, in general, they are dependent on the vagaries of a small number of caregivers — and in the case of single mothers, where the situation is compounded when neither of parent nor child can get away from the intensity of the relationship, be it good or bad.

In such a situation, mistrust and betrayal are all too readily available, in fact they may be said to be the common currency of the relationship.

And it is trust, more than any other single thing, that allows us to engage in into the process of connection with another human being (or to shy away from it, fearful of the harm that may be done to us by somebody to whom we have connected betraying our trust or breaking our intimate connection).

Because, when you think about it, our fear of intimacy is based on the presumption that our intimacy will be lost, or that we will be betrayed in some way. If this were not the case, we would engage in intimate relationships with no fear, no anxiety, and no prospect perhaps of breaking up — at least, if the relationship did break up, it would not be the emotionally devastating event that so many people in our society currently find separation to be.

So in the presumption therefore that all things go back to childhood, and that the trust (or otherwise) that a child can invest in both himself and in those around him in later life, so as to be able to form deep emotionally and physically rewarding relationships, my suggestion would be that if you are having problems you engage in some form of therapy that is going to be helpful to you in overcoming these historical issues. Shadow work is one form of therapy my clients have found to be particularly effective and therapeutic in this respect. So is emotional freedom techniques or EFT.  If you wish to find out more about EFT training you can get the information here.

But there is more to fear of intimacy than simply a lack of trust, or betrayal, in childhood. For as many of you will know, forming an intimate relationship, or rather not forming one because of the fear of intimacy, is very often based on high level of anxiety.

When one analyses what that anxiety is about, the sad truth is that more often than not, one finds that it is often actually about the prospect of a sexual relationship. Why, then, would sexual relationships be so threatening to an individual that they avoid intimacy of any kind?

After all, a good relationship that has built gradually, can build up to sex in a way that is nonthreatening. So my assumption is that anybody avoiding a relationship because they have a fear of sex must have a very high level of anxiety about the prospect of engaging physically with another person – anxiety that is so high that they have been traumatized in some way in their own history. To assist in overcoming sexual problems which may play a part in generating a fear of sex, I have produced some videos on various sexual dysfunctions that can be a cause of anxiety  – see one on causes of delayed ejaculation and one on treatment of delayed ejaculation here.

 

Child abuse, in particular sexual abuse, is but one possibility here, and there are many more: anything, I think that leads to an individual losing trust in other people can be a cause of failing to form good quality relationships — or indeed any relationships — as an adult.

What is the cure for this problem?

So what is the kind of therapy best applied to fear of intimacy? Well I think the answer to that is that any therapy with an extremely good therapist who is qualified to deal with deep issues of trust and abandonment, can work well for an individual and help overcome fear of intimacy.

My judgement is that the relationship formed must be meaningful and profound between therapist and client. You see, healing of wounds like those which produce a fear of intimacy — nearly always a breakdown of trust — is done best in a relationship of mutual respect and unconditional positive regard.

The healing really is in the relationship. How else, would somebody who had been damaged and relationship will learn how to trust again unless they were in a relationship where the trust was actually fulfilled? So what I’m saying is that to engage in the process of healing, and you may not necessarily need to bounce into a sexual relationship with another person, but you can certainly benefit providing a relationship with a therapist where you have the ability to engage and experiment with new behavior.