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Not quite the same as closeness...
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To many people, intimacy means closeness. Actually, the two are somewhat different, and knowing
this can be helpful to a couple locked in conflict over their relationship ("I never know what he's feeling," for example,
or "I need my space").
When we are close to another person, we are aware of how connected we feel to them. Sometimes, especially at the
beginning of a relationship, closeness is a heady experience. We may be delighted that we share so many things -- a fondness
for chocolate milk, Oriental rugs, jazz clubs. All those popular songs about "two being as one" seem to have been written
just for us.
Sometimes, though, we may feel overwhelmed at or burdened by the prospect of closeness. It feels like a demand. Stifling.
A truly intimate relationship contains both closeness and distance. When we are intimate with another person, we
are able to connect with them while maintaining our own sense of identity. We are not only sharing our thoughts and feelings
with the other person or listening to their thoughts and feelings, but each of us is in touch with ourselves. We are separate
people who have developed our own ways to both nurture and confront ourselves. When the focus is less on closeness and more
on authentic being and relating, intimacy becomes a rich and very alive experience.
As Thomas Patrick Malone and Patrick Thomas Malone say in their book The Art of Intimacy, "few of us could sit
in a closet with another person for any length of time without learning a great deal about that person....In the closet our
own awareness is focused on the other while we are close. But in some rare moments, in that shared space of our closet and
in the presence of the other, we may experience ourselves in some new, different, and more profound way. This is intimacy.
When I am close, I know you; when I am intimate, I know myself. When I am close, I know you in your presence; when I am intimate
I know myself in your presence. Intimacy is a remarkable experience. Usually I know myself only in my aloneness, my dreams,
my personal space. But to feel and know myself in the presence of another is enlivening, enlightening, joyful, and most of
all, freeing. I can be who I am freely and fully in the presence of another."
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Last updated on
N.Y. Licensed Psychoanalyst
Certified, National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis
Member, American Association of Pastoral Counselors
Individuals, Couples, Parent
coaching
Westchester County and New York City
914-941-6478
212-802-7333
Serving the online community as well as midtown Manhattan, 10016, 10022, 10017, Westchester Putnam Dutchess
and Fairfield counties, including Ossining Briarcliff Manor Croton-on-Hudson Yorktown Heights Sleepy Hollow Tarrytown Pleasantville
Pocantico Hills Chappaqua Millwood Mount Kisco Somers Katonah Mahopac Irvington Hastings-on-Hudson Yonkers and Valhalla.
Individual therapy, spiritual counseling, couples counseling, and parent coaching, as well as premarital
counseling and help with divorce, relationships and communication.
Copyright © 2005 Jean Fitzpatrick. All rights reserved.
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