Recovering Intimacy in Love Relationships

A Clinician's Guide

Jon Carlson, Len Sperry

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781136976469
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Psychische Gesundheit in der Psychologie

The loss of intimacy is one of the most difficult—but also one of the most common—factors in the destruction of any relationship. Recovering Intimacy in Love Relationships lays out practical, evidence-based guidelines on which clinicians can depend as they wade through the intense emotions and fragile bonds of couples in crisis. With care and sensitivity, the book's authors analyze the increasingly complex context in which the cycle of intimacy develops, wanes, and recovers. The chapters delve into diverse populations' attitudes toward intimacy andprovide an entire section on cultural, gender and religious issues.

Clinicians looking for a research-based, practical take on the many facets of intimacy in the twenty-first century need look no further than this book.

PART I
Intimacy Overview

CHAPTER 1
Intimacy
Definition, Contexts, and Models for Understanding Its Development and Diminishment
LEN SPERRY

A book or treatise about the recovering of intimacy presumes that the experience of intimacy has already been achieved, but that somehow it has cooled or even been lost. Today, unfortunately, this experience of diminishment and loss of intimacy has become all too painfully common. Needless to say, the results and consequences of this loss can be devastating for couples.

Subsequent chapters in this book describe and illustrate the process of recovering intimacy. However, before turning to these chapters, it may be useful and reasonable to first address the matter of intimacy itself: what is it, how it develops, and how it becomes diminished and lost. The purpose of this chapter is to address these questions. Accordingly, it provides an overview of definitions and contexts for understanding intimacy. It then describes some developmental and diagnostic models of intimacy that have considerable clinical value and utility for clinicians working with couples. Finally, it sketches some of the many causes of the loss and diminishment of intimacy that are further elaborated in subsequent chapters.

Defining Intimacy and Its Contexts

In everyday conversation intimacy has come to mean a close and even a sexual relationship. The Random House College Dictionary of the English Language (1983) defines intimacy as a “close, familiar, and usually affectionate or loving personal relationship with another person” entailing a “detailed knowledge or deep understanding” of that person.

Implied in this definition is that there is a developmental aspect of intimacy in which such detailed knowledge and deep understanding occur. It is fascinating to note that since the publication of our book The Intimate Couple (Carlson and Sperry, 1999), the situation has changed little in that most professional articles and books on intimacy discuss it without formally defining it. It seems that intimacy is a lot like pornography. Most of us know what it is when we see it, but precisely defining it and differentiating it from other related constructs continue to be quite challenging. Generally speaking, clinicians, writers, and researchers are reluctant to define intimacy, presumably because even operational definitions are difficult to formulate.

That being said, we hazard the following definition and description of intimacy. We consider intimacy to be the ability—and the choice—to be close, loving, and vulnerable. Intimacy is a dynamic process that evolves over time and for which mutual trust is essential for its continued development; and intimacy presumes the capacity for self-knowledge and for self-disclosure. Self-knowledge makes it possible to be oneself in an intimate relationship without taking over the other or losing oneself to the other—called symbiosis. Instead, intimacy involves the capacity to be separate and together in an intimate relationship—called self-differentiation. Self-disclosure is the capacity to share one’s self, including one’s deepest fears and dreams, with another. A lack of the capacities for mutual trust, self-knowledge, self-differentiation, and self-disclosure reflects a symbiotic rather than an intimate relationship. There are several dimensions to intimacy, including emotional, physical, sexual, spiritual, aesthetic, social, recreational, and intellectual aspects. Among these, emotional and sexual are the most commonly described by clients, clinicians, and researchers. Furthermore, it is important to note that each partner also needs to focus on creating a safe nonjudgmental accepting environment for his or her partner for this to occur.

Marriage can be a particularly close intimate relationship. It is a relationship in which the partners can strive to know and trust each other and share deep personal information without fear of ridicule or reprisal. Psychological safety is the precondition for intimacy, and unless partners make it safe for the other to be him- or herself, intimacy is impossible (Hendrix, 1988/2008).

Because intimacy demands trust, deep sharing, and vulnerability, relatively few couples experience intimacy as an ongoing, sustained state. In fact, most couples experience it episodically and imperfectly, if at all (Welwood, 2005). Also because of its demands, betrayal of intimacy can be a traumatic experience. Furthermore, because intimacy requires nurturing to sustain itself, several circumstances can cause it to cool or be lost. Needless to say, the restoration and recovery of the former level of intimacy can be exceedingly difficult, particularly since so many individuals and couples continue to believe in the fallacy of romantic love and infatuation as the basis for intimacy.

The construct of intimacy is similar to but can and should be differentiated from related constructs such as love, passion, power, boundaries, autonomy, closeness, and commitment. The rest of this section provides a context and conceptual boundaries for understanding intimacy and its related constructs. These contexts include mature and immature intimacy; love and intimacy; intimacy, passion, and commitment; and boundaries, power, and intimacy.

The first context is that of mature and immature intimacy. Husband– wife relationships are capable of mature intimacy, whereas mother–child relationships are not capable of mature intimacy. Obviously, the couple’s relationship can be characterized by immature intimacy, despite their capacity to relate maturely, whereas immature intimacy is the only capacity for mother–child relationships. In this regard, the dictionary definition given earlier does not distinguish between mature and immature intimacy. On the other hand, Welwood (2005) distinguishes mature or perfect love from immature love. Beavers (1985) and Napier (1996) assume this distinction by specifying that individuals have equal overt power or are emotionally differentiated persons. L’Abate (1997) implies such equality. Whitaker and Ryan (1989) add that intimacy develops in tandem with self-autonomy and that autonomy increases as a function of intimacy.

A second context involves the distinction of love and intimacy. L’Abate and Talmadge (1987) describe love as a development process consisting of three elements: behavioral, cognitive, and emotional. The behavioral element consists of the capacity to be caring and to accept care. The cognitive element consists of the capacity to see good in another and the capacity for forgiveness. The emotional element is, of course, intimacy. Intimacy consists of the capacity to be dependent on the other, the capacity of receiving love and accepting the partner’s love. It also consists of the capacity to express, withstand, understand, and resolve the conflict and hostility that occur in intimate relationships. Needless to say, this is exceedingly difficult in a culture that promotes independence and self-sufficiency.

A third involves the relationship of intimacy to passion and commitment. Sternberg (1986, 1987) describes what he calls the “triangle of love.” It consists of three components: commitment, passion, and intimacy. For Sternberg intimacy encompasses the affects and feeling states of closeness, connectedness, and bondedness. Passion is described as encompassing the drive that leads to physical attraction, romance, and sexual consummation of the relationship. Commitment differs from passion and intimacy in that it involves short-term and long-term decisions. The short-term decision is to love the other individual, while the long-term decision is to maintain that love. Developmentally, intimacy, passion, and commitment change in degree or level during the course of an ongoing relationship (Sternberg, 1986). Passion becomes increasingly intense early in the relationship in conjunction with a rapid rise in intimacy. Commitment, however, develops much more slowly and steadily. As the relationship continues to develop, commitment rises to match the level of intimacy, while the level of passion often decreases significantly. Accordingly, when a couple complains that their “love has cooled” or “the romance is gone,” what they are really saying is that a change in the level of passion in their relationship has occurred. When passion decreases but the levels of intimacy and commitment remain adequate, the relationship is not in jeopardy, but rather one element of it has changed.

A fourth context involves the relationship of intimacy to power and boundaries. Bennan and Leif (1975) were the first to differentiate power and boundary dimensions from intimacy. The intimacy dimension involves self-disclosure, friendship, caring, and appreciation of individual uniqueness. It involves negotiating both the emotional and physical distances between partners, so as to balance the need for autonomy with the need for belonging. Boundary issues in couples’ relationships center on membership and structure: membership in terms of who is involved in the couples’ system and to what degree, and structure in terms of the extent to which partners are part of, but at the same time apart from, the couple subsystem. Boundary also refers to the degree of intrusiveness that will be accepted in the relationship. For married couples, commitment to their marriage is the core boundary issue, along with related commitments to jobs, friends, extended family, and outside interests. Power issues include responsibility, discipline, control, role negotiation, and decision making. Couples’ relationships continually involve both overt and covert efforts to influence decisions and behaviors of the partners. Power issues are tied to money, privileges, and rewards. They are also more subtly manifest in struggles for control of the relationship, including one-upmanship efforts and escalation of conflict. The power dimension “predicts” who will pursue and who will distance in the relationship. In marital conflict it “determines” who tells whom what to do in specific situations. The power dimension greatly impacts both boundaries and the level and nature of intimacy. Optimal couple functioning and self-differentiation result when boundary and power issues are reasonably resolved so that the partners can relate in a healthy and intimate manner (Doherty & Colangelo, 1984).

In short, the construct of intimacy is similar to but can be differentiated from related constructs such as love, passion, power, boundaries, autonomy, closeness, and commitment. Now we turn to a discussion of various clinical and research models for understanding the process of how intimacy develops, fails to develop, and diminishes.

Models of Intimacy

You now have a cross-sectional perspective on intimacy. This perspective is useful in defining the term and differentiating from others, but it is an insufficient perspective. To more fully understand and appreciate intimacy one must also have a longitudinal perspective and a diagnostic perspective. This section describes both of these. First, two developmental models usefully describe the trajectory intimacy takes if it does develop and mature. As previously noted, the development of maturity appears to be rather uncommon for couples. Next, two diagnostic models are offered. The first is the underlying theory for the second. The second is the Global Assessment of Relationship Functioning (GARF) scale, which became a part of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders fourth edition (DSM–IV) and the current DSM–IV–TR. Although it appears that far too few clinicians who work with couples utilize this rather sophisticated diagnostic device, GARF does possess considerable clinical value in quickly and accurately assessing a couple’s level of intimacy, both emotionally and sexually.

Developmental Models

There are at least two developmental models of the stages of long-term relationships such as marriage. The first to be briefly described are the four stages of a close love relationship described by Sperry (1978) and his colleagues (Sperry & Carlson, 1991; Sperry, Carlson, & Peluso, 2006). These stages are described in terms of the developmental process of growth from the symbiotic-like quality of new relationships through other stages requiring considerable growth and differentiation of both partners in intimacy. Four stages distinguish various points on this developmental journey: dependence, counterdependence, independence, and interdependence. Most couples begin at the first and quickly move to the second where they may become stuck for a long time and may not proceed beyond this stage without significant personal and relational growth, often requiring effective therapy to continue on this journey.

Dependence

In the dependence stage, which spans first attraction to the end of the honeymoon, both individuals seek a sense of mutual completeness, or symbiotic striving, and total happiness, which they wrongly and blindly assume is achieved simply by being in the presence of the other. As one or both relinquish their allegiance to this myth, the relationship shifts to the next stage.

Counterdependence

Also called negative independence, the counterdependence stage is marked by disillusion, discontent, and discord. Blaming and relinquishment of personal responsibility become mutually alternative behaviors. Couples reflect their discontent directly by demanding, fighting, and competing with each other, or more indirectly with passive aggression or by leading lives of unhappiness and quiet desperation. Efforts at autonomy are in stark conflict with mutuality, and thus, infidelity, separation, and divorce are common at this stage.

Independence

Also called positive independence, the independence stage is marked by the recognition that demands for mutual completeness and total happiness are unrealistic and acceptance that growth in autonomy, self-knowledge, self-disclosure, and self-differentiation are necessary for growth and intimacy. This is a transitional stage in which the needs for autonomy and mutuality are recognized but only tentatively met.

Interdependence

The interdependence stage is ma...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Series Editor’s Foreword
• Preface
• Contributors
• Part I: Intimacy Overview
• Part II: Clinical Considerations In Recovery from Emotional Infidelity