Introduction
Experiential Exercise.
Description.
Exercise Observations.
Associating “Intimacy Extremes” / Purpose of Exercise.
Marital Conflict and Marital Intimacy.
Five Components of Intimacy.
Fear of Merger.
Fear of Exposure.
Fear of Attack.
Fear of Abandonment.
Fear of ones own destructive impulses.
The Conflict and the Response.
Rapprochement.
Working in a counselling environment.
Bibliography

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Working in Partnership

Introduction

This paper uses as its base Feldman’s paper: “Marital Conflict and Marital Intimacy: An Integrative psychodynamic-behavioral-systemic model” (1979)

Also references:

Harriet Lerner: The Dance of Intimacy (1989, ISBN: 0-06-097646-X)

Robert Firestone: Fear of Intimacy (1999, ISBN: 1-55798-720-3)

Experiential Exercise.

Description.

All participants are to be standing.
Each participant selects two people from the group, yet the selection remains secret.
The main aim during this exercise is to place yourself equal distance between the two people. As everyone will be moving at the same time, it’s likely that your selected two people will move also. As they move, you will need to keep yourself at an equal distance between the other two people. You may ignore everyone else’s activity within the group.
Movement: when the exercise begins, you may move quickly or you may move slowly. You can move quite deliberately (possibly revealing which two people you have chosen; which is quite alright) or you may move cautiously (possibly keeping secret which people you have chosen; which is also alright).
Start the exercise.

Exercise Observations.

What happened?
What did it feel like?
Did the exercise end on its own or did it time out?

Associating “Intimacy Extremes” / Purpose of Exercise.

From the exercise, imagine that the two people you elected were extremes of intimacy in a relationship. One person represented: “not enough intimacy; need more. Therefore move towards the intimacy/person”, the other person represented “too much intimacy; need less; conflict. Therefore move away from the intimacy/person”.

Sometimes the exercise ends itself and all participants find themselves equally distanced between their chosen people. This might represent a static, most-perfect state between too much and too little intimacy.

More usually, the exercise goes on for a long time until all participants agree to stop. This might represent the dynamics of relationships; constantly ebbing and flowing between too much and too little intimacy.

Consider: how might the exercise have been different if people had spoken to each other during the task?
Consider: what if there had been an external observer giving feedback during this event?
(Further consider: what if these two aspects: too much/too little intimacy were aspects within a single person, e.g. perhaps due to narcissistic disturbance?)

Marital Conflict and Marital Intimacy.

Feldman uses his 1979 paper to describe experiences within marital relationships that stimulate and maintain repetitive, non-productive marital conflict behaviour.

To clarify what this means, I have summarise my understanding here:

Starting from a point in the cycle, a person requires intimacy in order to satisfy basic needs as a human being. The need for intimacy drives the individual into seeking for it, and then basking in it once found. However, unconscious anxieties can experience the intimacy attained as something that is dangerous and anxiety provoking and something that needs to be moved away from. This creates unconscious conflict which requires we step away from the intimacy in order to avoid the anxieties and conflict. However, in stepping away, the need for intimacy goes unsatisfied and at some point during the “stepping away” we find we have moved too far from the intimacy and need to begin seeking it again.

The cycle starts afresh.

This is just for one “dynamic” partner in the relationship, assuming the other partner is more “static”. Yet either or both partners maybe participating in this cycle with their own individual angles on the cycle.

The main points that Feldman includes within his model are:-

This cycle is deliberate (albeit mostly unconscious). There is a powerful need for intimacy and yet there is also a powerful need to avoid anxieties around the intimacies; this is caused by unconscious conflict. These are two seemingly mutual states.
When unconscious anxieties are in force (the “trigger”), destructive acts reduce the intimacy and the anxieties, such as verbal abuse and/or physical abuse.
When the destructive acts have reduced intimacy to a level below that which the unconscious can tolerate the associated anxieties, conciliatory behaviour tries to repair any damage and to attempt to build up intimacy again.

I believe these things are not only prevalent in marital relationships but I can also see aspects in the following:-

The pre-marital relationship such as boyfriend / girlfriend, girlfriend / girlfriend and boyfriend / boyfriend.
The Parent / Child relationship.
Platonic Friend/Friend relationship within and across genders.
Employer / Employee relationship.
Kidnapper / Hostage (perhaps).
Counsellor / Client.
One’s self / one’s self.

Feldman categorise some (all?!) of the reasons why intimacy may unconsciously hook into ones anxieties. He comes up with five categories.

Five Components of Intimacy.

Fear of Merger.

Intimacy can result in a weakening of self-boundaries i.e. whilst a temporary sense of “we two are one” grows, there may be an unconscious threat that the “self” maybe lost.

If the individual’s sense of self does not weaken then the merger sense satisfies the individual.

However, if the sense of self is weak then whilst intimate-merger is sought it also can be experienced as dangerous and taps into unconscious fears.

Fear of Exposure.

To some individuals, deep privacy is essential to their psyche’s safety. Within an intimate experience the “merging” aspects, described above, may also threaten to reveal the things one keeps hidden (e.g. one’s shadow side, the part of us we don’t want others to see).

A person who accepts himself or herself will not be so threatened by the intimate merger, but the weaker self may fear experiencing shame and – according to Feldman – may attempt to end the relationship rather than seek to reduce the intimacy. This suggests to me that the unconscious fear may be in the region of a threat of death, as to terminate the relationship sounds like an attempt to survive the conflict by destroying the other as an unconscious projection of the self.

Fear of Attack.

Feldman associates this fear with Freud’s Oedipal and basic trust-mistrust period of development.

I understand the trust-mistrust period to be around “testing” the other to ascertain of the other is a threat, if the other might attack us, if the other can be trusted. For example, can baby trust the breast always to give milk upon demand and if the breast is unavailable upon demand will the breast eventually return (hence baby’s life will be sustained) or will it never return (hence baby will die). This is akin to Klein’s paranoid schizoid anxieties that, say, the breast will not behave at our whim – it may even be perceived as being persecutory.

The Oedipal period is where the mother-infant dyad comes under threat when an “other” is recognised in the relationship. The new triad produces conflict due to:

Sexual impulses towards the opposite-sex parent.
Aggressive impulses towards the same-sex parent.
The same-sex parent is a threat to us, but successful resolution is actually finding a way to lose to the same-sex parent and share the opposite-sex parent with the same-sex parent.

So, fear of attack means that the intimacy may raise fears of persecution or fears of being attacked and harmed.

Fear of Abandonment.

In abandonment, Feldman references Freud in talking about “loss of the love-object”. We’re talking here about separation anxiety, that we may have become so dependant upon the partner, that should the partner leave (abandon) us we may then not survive.

Oedipal – threat that same-sex parent and opposite-sex parent may decide to “go off” together and leave the child behind. Or if the same-sex parent is successfully killed off (as a rival) then later this parent’s love and support will have been lost. I take this to mean that a heterosexual relationship may impact upon a person where the partner may represent, in transference, the parent of the opposite-gender that may have been successfully “won” by destroying the parent of the same-gender. Additionally, a homosexual relationship may impact upon a person where the partner may represent, in transference, the parent of the same-0gender that may have been successfully disposed of (in phantasy).

Fear of ones own destructive impulses.

Klenian theory:

Splitting– a person can be perceived as only good or bad.
Projection – it is actually aspects of ourselves that we perceive in the “other”.
Fear that the bad may be too overwhelming when placed next to the good implies that the bad may destroy the good.

To experience an intimate merging with an other may mean that the bad, destructive sides of one’s self come close to being revealed, and come close to destroying the other “good” person in the intimacy.

The Conflict and the Response.

So, intimacy was sought and intimacy was found. The intimacy is tapping upon one or more of the unconscious fears described above. Anxiety is being generated and defences must come into play to protect the hidden feelings.

Feldman describes this defensive behaviour as attempts to destroy the intimacy in order to move away from it. This can be in forms of attack such as verbal: shouting, abuse, denigration, physical: hitting, withdrawal of touch.

There is an Initiator and a Responder, and whilst these roles may be fixed in some relationships, and may fluctuate in other relationships …

…the “dance” is always lead by the person with lowest threshold (Esau, classroom, 2003).

The initiator may start an argument with the responder or may hit the responder.

The purpose of this is to reduce and destroy the intimacy to a level that no longer provokes anxiety.

Rapprochement.

Yet, the confliction behaviour may be more than just successful; it may reduce the anxiety so successfully that there is now less intimacy than the self needs. So, some form of “making up” has to be initiated in order to repair the relationship and allow intimacy to build up again.

Working in a counselling environment.

Main purpose: to diminish the anxieties and reduce the need to enact the conflict behaviour.

Examine transference: Taking the two families of origin.

Dreams – interpretation inform the nature of the transference.

Individual become more aware of their wishes, fears and defences, and become more away of the wishes, fears and defences of the other partner.

Process of change, individuals become less destructive, promote empathy and trust, intimate behaviour becomes more frequent and longer-lasting and conflict behaviour becomes less frequent and less destructive.

Bibliography