Fear of intimacy

Fear of intimacy is generally a social phobia and anxiety disorder resulting in difficulty forming close relationships with another person. The term can also refer to a scale on a psychometric test, or a type of adult in attachment theory psychology.

The fear of intimacy is the fear of being emotionally and/or physically close to another individual. This fear is also defined as “the inhibited capacity of an individual, because of anxiety, to exchange thought and feelings of personal significance with another individual who is highly valued”.  Fear of intimacy is the expression of existential views in that to love and to be loved makes life seem precious and death more inevitable. It often results from past traumas such as rape or childhood sexual abuse. Fear of intimacy is also related to the fear of being touched.

People with this fear are anxious about or afraid of intimate relationships. They believe that they do not deserve love or support from others.  Fear of intimacy has three defining features: content which represents the ability to communicate personal information, emotional valence which refers to the feelings about personal information exchanged, and vulnerability signifying their regard for the person they are intimate with.  Bartholomew and Horowitz go further and determine four different adult attachment types: “(1) Secure individuals have a sense of worthiness or lovability and are comfortable with intimacy and autonomy; (2) preoccupied persons lack this sense of self-worthiness yet view others positively and seek their love and acceptance; (3) fearful people lack a sense of lovability and are avoidant of others in anticipation of rejection; (4) dismissing persons feel worthy of love yet detach from others whom they generally regard as untrustworthy”.

The Fear of Intimacy Scale (FIS) is a 35-item self-evaluation that can determine the level of fear of intimacy that an individual has. This test can determine this level even if the individual is not in a relationship. It was found by Doi and Thelen that FIS correlated positively with confidence in the dependability of others and fear of abandonment while correlating negatively with comfort and closeness. A high score represents a high level of fear of intimacy.

A study conducted by Reis and Grenyer found that women with depression have much higher levels of fear of intimacy.  Another study found that fear of intimacy among women might be strongly associated with actual intimacy instead of desired intimacy.  This study also found that the level of the woman’s fear of intimacy is a good indicator of the longevity of a couple’s relationship.

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Wikipedia