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Intimacy, Gender and Self Psychology: Considerations for Relationship Counselling
Author(s) -
Brown Jac
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
australian and new zealand journal of family therapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.297
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1467-8438
pISSN - 0814-723X
DOI - 10.1002/j.1467-8438.2001.tb00468.x
Subject(s) - psychology , object relations theory , limiting , social psychology , focus (optics) , individual psychology , object (grammar) , project commissioning , counselling psychology , psychotherapist , publishing , psychoanalytic theory , mechanical engineering , linguistics , philosophy , physics , optics , political science , law , engineering
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.