Intimacy,Gender and Self Psychology: Considerations for Relationship Counselling

This paper reviews major conceptualisations of intimacy and the blocks, frequently attributed to gender, which are thought to contribute to problems in couple relationships. The paper concludes that gender is often not the limiting factor that inhibits intimacy in heterosexual couples. It may be more productive to consider individual rather than couple therapy to deal with impasses that appear to be associated with gender. Ideas from self psychology provide insights into how some requests for intimacy may be related to immature self‐object needs, which may better be handled through individual rather than couple therapy. A range of therapeutic goals and strategies that focus directly on intimacy are then outlined.     

Facilitated Disclosure versus Clinical Accommodation of Infidelity Secrets: An Early Pivot Point in Couple Therapy. Part 1: Couple Relationship Ethics, Pragmatics, and Attachment

A critical and potentially polarizing decision in treating infidelity is whether facilitating partner disclosure or accommodating nondisclosure is most beneficial following private disclosure of infidelity to the therapist. Given couple distress and volatility following disclosure, understandably some therapists judge accommodating an infidelity secret both efficient and compassionate. Employing Western ethics and an attachment/intimacy lens, we consider ethical, pragmatic, and attachment intimacy implications of accommodating infidelity secrets. Issues bearing on the decision to facilitate disclosure or accommodate nondisclosure include (a) relationship ethics and pragmatics; (b) attachment and intimacy consequences; and (c) prospects for healing. We conclude that facilitating voluntary disclosure of infidelity, although difficult and demanding, represents the most ethical action with the best prospects for renewed and vital attachment intimacy.     

Remediating Affect: “Luclyn” and Lesbian Intimacy on YouTube

This article focuses on Kaelyn and Lucy, a long distance (US–UK) lesbian couple who document their relationship on YouTube. Their channel has attracted a following of hundreds of thousands of individuals who profess to feeling an intimate attachment to the couple. This article considers how Kaelyn and Lucy's performance of lesbian intimacy online has amassed such a following. In exploring the multiple feelings that Kaelyn and Lucy's YouTube channel contains, it builds on and contributes to theorizing online emotion, and in particular, frames their channel as a “digital archive of feelings” (Kuntsman, 2012). Picking up on the way in which followers profess to having unmediated access to their relationship, I build on Bolter and Grusin's concept of “remediation” to argue that Kaelyn and Lucy produce a sense of immediacy for their followers through the remediation of other romantic genres. Secondly, I draw out the importance of time to the creation of a sense of shared intimacy, arguing that Kaelyn and Lucy's use of YouTube invites followers to feel as though they are sharing in the timing of the couple's relationship. This article thus uses this case study to reflect on the process by which a contemporary representation of lesbian intimacy has become a scene of attachment, whereby a larger “intimate public” (Berlant, 2008) has formed.     

The influence of religious and ethnic differences on marital intimacy: intermarriage versus intramarriage

The influence of religious and ethnic differences on marital intimacy was examined by administering the Personal Assessment of Intimacy in Relationships and a demographic/attitudinal questionnaire to 25 Jewish couples (intramarried) and 25 couples with one Jewish partner (intermarried). All couples were childless and in the first 5 years of their first marriage. Results indicated that the groups did not differ regarding couple level of intimacy, similarity of intimate experience, or mutual understanding. However, in-depth interviews revealed differences in the pathways by which these two groups arrived at a similar level of intimacy. Intramarried couples appear to experience greater personal similarity and mutual understanding rooted in their ethnic bond, which aids the development of intimacy. Intermarried couples appear to find that the very process of negotiating ethnic differences leads to greater mutual understanding and intimacy. These findings indicate that clinicians and religious leaders should not assume that intermarriage constrains levels of intimacy. Nor should it be assumed that intramarriage assures high intimacy.     

People who live apart together (LATs): new family form or just a stage?

‘Living apart together’ – that is being in an intimate relationship with a partner who lives somewhere else (LAT) – is increasingly recognised and accepted as a specific way of being in a couple. On the face of it, this is a far cry from the ‘traditional’ version of couple relationships, where co-residence in marriage was placed at the centre and where living apart from one's partner would be regarded as abnormal, and understandable only as a reaction to severe external constraints. Some commentators regard living apart together as a historically new family form where partners can pursue a ‘both/and’ solution to partnership – they can experience both couple intimacy, but at the same time maintain personal autonomy and pre-existing commitments. Alternatively, others see LAT as just a ‘stage’ on the way to cohabitation and marriage, where LATs are not radical pioneers moving beyond the family, but are cautious and conservative, and simply show a lack of commitment. Behind these rival interpretations lies the increasingly tarnished spectre of individualisation theory. Is LAT some sort of index for a developing individualisation in practice? We take this debate further by using information from the 2006 British Social Attitudes Survey and from in-depth interviews with LAT partners. We find that LATs do resemble cohabitating (unmarried) couples in demographic and social terms, but also display quite diverse origins and motivations. One group of LATs do not see themselves as couple partners at all, but more as special boy/girlfriends. Others live apart mainly in response to external circumstances. But some LATs do seem to be developing a new way of living in their relationships, as a means of balancing both couple intimacy and personal autonomy over the longer term.     

The Narcissism of Minor Differences as Distance Regulators in Core Intimacy Problems

Freud's narcissism of minor differences is explored in the context of couple therapy. The paper attempts to highlight how these minor differences manifest themselves in the development of major relationship crises. In particular an attempt is made to illustrate how these minor differences come to act as distance regulators in the delicate intimacy dance of the too‐near, too‐far dynamic.     

Using eye movement desensitization and reprocessing to enhance treatment of couples

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) as a clinical technique may enhance treatment effectiveness when applied within a couple therapy approach that is emotionally and experientially oriented. Clinical experience indicates that EMDR-based interventions are useful for accessing, activating, tolerating, and reprocessing the intense emotions that often fuel dysfunctional couple interactions. Using EMDR within conjoint sessions to reprocess negative emotions can amplify intimacy, increase connection, and subsequently lead to a change in problematic relationship patterns.     

Complex Couples: Multi‐Theoretical Couples Counselling with Traumatised Adults Who have a History of Child Sexual Abuse

One of the major ways child sexual abuse can have an impact on individuals is in their later ability to have and maintain fulfilling couple relationships. Survivors may experience avoidance behaviours that become problematic in their adult intimate relationships. If couple therapists fail to focus on these traumatic imprints, the therapy may founder. This paper proposes that a multi‐theoretical approach enables the couple therapist to deal with the complex problems such couples present including sexuality and intimacy concerns. Such an approach integrates trauma theory, attachment theory, feminist principles, body‐oriented psychotherapy, and systemic couple therapy.     

Why do couples seek relationship help online? Description and comparison to in‐person interventions

Couples are increasingly utilizing newly developed online adaptations of couple therapy; however, different presenting problems could drive couples to seek either online or in‐person services. This study compared the presenting problems of 151 couples seeking an online couple intervention for relationship distress (OurRelationship) with responses from 147 couples seeking in‐person couple therapy. Presenting problems were generally consistent across gender and whether or not the respondent was the initial help‐seeker. Online and in‐person samples frequently endorsed difficulties with communication and emotional intimacy; however, they differentially endorsed trust, time together, and child/parenting difficulties. Therefore, while basing online interventions on existing couple therapies is generally supported, efforts should be made to tailor online services to meet the unique needs of this population.     

“Where do all the lovers go?” – The Cultural Politics of Public Kissing in Mumbai,India (1950–2005)

Public expressions of sexual intimacy have often been subject to moral censure and legal regulation in modern India. While there is literature that analyzes the cultural-political logics of censorship and sexual illiberalism in India, the discourses of sympathy towards public displays of intimacy has not received as much critical attention. In this paper, I take the case of one representative discursive space offered by a popular English newspaper and show how the figure of the ‘kissing couple’ became an important entity in larger discussions about the state of urban development, the role of pleasure in the city, and the imagination of a “modern” Mumbai.     

Experiencing Couple Relationships in the Line of Fire

The study aims to explore the way civilians living in the line of fire experience the impact of exposure to warfare on their couple relationships. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 14 couples living on the Israeli side of the border with the Gaza Strip. Four themes emerged: Overall perception of the security situation's impact on the dyadic relationships, dyadic intimacy, role division and decision‐making, and Couple's emotional coping: partnership versus separateness. The findings were organized along a continuum between impacted and not‐impacted relationships. Couple's position on this continuum was not fixed and could change as a result of to the security situation or marital therapy. The findings were framed in concepts from Dialectic Theory and from the Family Adaptation Models. Implications for couple therapy in these situations were specified.     

Into the Lion's Den:

The need to "couple," to have that special person with whom we share not only sexual intimacy but a past, present, and future, is not limited to the "straight" world. Raised by heterosexual parents, gays (male homosexuals) desire that same type of intimacy. Given that intimate relationships provide a very necessary function for the larger community of heterosexuals, those relationships should provide the same function for gays. This paper examines the differences and similarities between long-term gay and heterosexual intimate relationships, and the support each of those types of relationships receives from the community in which they exist.     

‘Workaholics’ and ‘whingeing women’: Theorising intimacy and emotion work — the last frontier of gender inequality?

In a variety of discourses and empirical studies it has been argued that compared with women, men show more reluctance to express intimate emotion in heterosexual couple relationships. Our paper attempts to theorise this gender asymmetry in intimate emotional behaviour as a sort of ‘emotional power’, within the wider context of continuing gender inequalities of resources and power in society. To the extent that men's role as breadwinner becomes their central life interest (they become ‘workaholics’), women are left with emotional responsibility for the private sphere, including the performance of the ‘emotion work’ necessary to maintain the couple relationship itself. Increasingly women's dissatisfaction in relationships (which men dismiss as unjustified ‘whingeing’) stems mainly from this unequal division. Yet many women still collude with male power by living the family ‘myth’ and ‘playing the couple game’; they perform emotion work on themselves to convince themselves that they are ‘ever so happy really’, thereby helping to reproduce their own false consciousness. This suggests that gender asymmetry in relation to intimacy and emotion work may be the last and most obstinate manifestation and frontier of gender inequality.     

People who live apart together (LATs) – how different are they?

‘Living apart together’– that is being in an intimate relationship with a partner who lives somewhere else – is increasingly recognised and accepted as a specific way of being in a couple. On the face of it, this is a far cry from the ‘traditional’ version of couple relationships, where co‐residence in marriage was placed at the centre and where living apart from one's partner would be regarded as abnormal, and understandable only as a reaction to severe external constraints. Some commentators regard living apart together as a historically new family form where LATs can pursue a ‘both/and’ solution to partnership – they can experience both the intimacy of being in a couple, and at the same time continue with pre‐existing commitments. LATs may even de‐prioritize couple relationships and place more importance on friendship. Alternatively, others see LAT as just a ‘stage’ on the way to cohabitation and marriage, where LATs are not radical pioneers moving beyond the family, but are cautious and conservative, and simply show a lack of commitment. Behind these rival interpretations lies the increasingly tarnished spectre of individualisation theory. Is LAT some sort of index for a developing individualisation in practice? In this paper we take this debate further by using information from the 2006 British Social Attitudes Survey. We find that LATs have quite diverse origins and motivations, and while as a category LATs are often among the more liberal in family matters, as a whole they do not show any marked ‘pioneer’ attitudinal position in the sense of leading a radical new way, especially if age is taken into account.     

Intimacy Is Sharing Hurt Feelings: A Reply to David Mace

Mace's arguments concerning the love-anger cycle in marriage are criticized on philosophical (theoretical) and technical (clinical) grounds. Underneath the smoke-screen of anger there is the fire of hurt feelings. Dealingwith these feelings decreases the expression of anger and helps the couple reach "real" intimacy: the sharing of hurt feelings. Victories we can sharewith anybody. Anybody is willing to share victories with us. Hurt feelings, on the other hand, belong within the marriage.     

THE PROCESS OF INTIMACY: SIMILARITY, UNDERSTANDING AND GENDER

This study examined gender and three aspects of marital intimacy using a method to establish both objective and subjective indices of intimacy. Fifty couples answered the Personal Assessment of Intimate Relationships (Schaefer & Olson, 1981) twice: once as a self-report and once to respond as they predicted their spouses would answer. Couples who were less accurate in predicting each other's responses also diverged in their experience of intimacy and reported lower intimacy. Results suggest that high intimacy is based on both understanding and similarity of intimate experience. Women reported significantly higher levels of intimacy and were also better than men in predicting their partners' feelings. These findings suggest that women may be more attuned to intimacy or that definitions and assessment of intimacy are gender biased or both.     

作为后现代情感的网络爱情：一个过程论的视角

由于网络爱情所具有的既隔离又连结的特性，使得人们获得较高的安全感的同时，又保有与他人的亲密感。所以，在网络中形成和发展的网络爱情所反映出的需要别人的许可和接受，需要别人的支持和合作，人们既想发泄内心深处的不安全感，渴望社会生活，同时又不想被伤害等精神旨趣，与“后现代情感”存在着逻辑的耦合与同构性。     

Learning About Marriage from the Divorced

Questionnaire and interview data from 138 men and women who experienced divorce in the middle years give insight into the process of coming apart. It was found that conflict was not an important variable because there often was no communication whatsoever occurring between the couple. For the majority of the divorced couples, time spent together in pleasurable pursuits diminished with the years; the marriage was not examined nor found lacking until some crisis occurred in the middle years-usually the husband developing a relationship outside the marriage that provided the companionship, sharing and intimacy lacking in the marriage. Recommendations for young couples entering marriage today which can serve to enhance the relationship are drawn from the research.