THE QUEST FOR INTIMACY*

Abstract

The creation or enhancement of intimacy is a goal that is widely sought in contemporary Western life and in many therapeutic and enrichment programs with couples and families. In this paper, intimate experience is conceptualized within a developmental, or epigenetic, framework of relational systems, viewed from an evolutionary and historical perspective, and considered in the light of hypotheses about gender differences. Intimacy recurs most reliably, not when it is demanded as a primary or continuous experience, but when it emerges spontaneously within a context of basic, well‐functioning relational processes.

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