What is proximity? What is intimacy and how does it develop?
There are three sources of human impulses - soul, mind and body. Attractions of souls breed friendship. The inclinations of the mind breed respect. The desires of the body give rise to desire. The union of the three drives produces love.
I recently asked a young man a question: "What stages does the rapprochement of a man and a woman go through?" And this is what he replied:
- Emotional intimacy.
- Physical proximity.
- Intellectual closeness.
- Spiritual closeness.
It seems to me that this point of view is popular among men. Indeed, more than once I received an offer to start acquaintance with physical communication, that is, with sex, in order to understand whether we are suitable for each other. Okay, checked and what's next? And then here's what, with this variant of proximity does not occur at any of the levels. I have a sex therapist friend who told me that the most common problem for people who have lived together for 5, 10, 15, 20 years is that they do not know each other and are not really close people. People live together, have children, sleep in the same bed for years, have sex, relax together and solve common problems. But at the same time, each of the spouses can have a person (or even several) much closer than the other half. There is even an opinion that true emotional intimacy is possible only between people of the same sex.
Is it so? How does friendship get closer? Two people meet (two women or two men), they don’t know each other yet, they don’t know anything about each other at all, but they have already made the first impression of each other. This impression is fleeting, instinctive and, as a rule, not at all rational. That is, this impression is at the level of feelings. Personally, my feelings in the very first second of communication define a person in one of the categories: the person is sympathetic to me, the person is not sympathetic to me, or I am indifferent. I think that this is the potential for spiritual intimacy. Further, rapprochement begins (or does not begin), the search for common ground. We are looking for common interests, common views, similar thoughts and emotions. If we find it, it’s good, the relationship begins to develop; if we don’t find it, the relationship doesn’t start. Then, as communication continues, the relationship deepens, somewhere we adapt to each other, somewhere we change, somewhere there is simply an exchange of information, emotions - and there is more and more common. Relationships develop gradually and rapprochement occurs gradually. No one will let an unfamiliar person into their soul. Unless a person who is hungry for proximity finds some safe option to pour out his soul (for example, to a priest or a random fellow traveler), but this is more likely not spiritual intimacy, but draining the material accumulated inside into a garbage can. Harmonious relationships are possible when emotional, intellectual and spiritual rapprochement run in parallel and gradually. When we do not try to jump several steps at once, but slowly but surely rise to true intimacy.
In the relationship between a man and a woman, there is another aspect - the physical. And here, for some reason, it is customary to jump over all the steps at once. So why be surprised that such closeness often ends in "breaks". It's like if you're baking pancakes and put the frying pan on the edge of the fire. Will you be surprised that on one side your pancake is already charred, and everything else is still raw. It's the same with intimacy, it needs to be heated over low heat and from all sides at the same time.
Question for dear men: "You often say: "Don't get into my soul", - you can even say this to your own wife, and you will definitely tell a girl you don’t know who asks too frank questions. You value and respect your soul so much and so protect it from impudent intrusions. So why do you think it's normal after five minutes of dating to climb into my body? And why are you so outraged by my careful and respectful attitude towards him and my protection of him from impudent intrusions?
You speak: "I want to find my soul mate", - but at the same time you begin acquaintance with the body. Forgive me, gentlemen, but my soul is not in the place where you are so eager to "climb".
The study was carried out by V. N. Kunitsyna in 1991. The task of the study was to find out the content of ideas about this phenomenon among people of different ages and gender, as well as the content of the criteria for assessing psychological closeness, which these people operate with. For this, a special form "Psychological closeness" was designed.
The survey involved students and adults: 133 people (57 men and 76 women) aged 17 to 59 years. The respondents had to independently formulate what psychological intimacy is and how it manifests itself. Here are the definitions that turned out to be typical for students:
“psychological intimacy is a relationship based on complete trust in each other, mutual understanding; mutual respect, mutual assistance”;
"proximity from another person– it is a community of ideas, habits, norms, values, character, way of thinking.
Both of these definitions refer to the second level of psychological intimacy, which one of the respondents defined as "soul kinship." The following two definitions rather speak of the first level of intimacy, which has received the figurative name "consonance of inner music":
"psychological intimacy"– it is spiritual and sensual consonance, the desire for communication, the experience of separation”;
"psychological intimacy"– mutual sympathy, goodwill, mutual understanding from a half-word.
Adult subjects often gave a more figurative definition of this phenomenon.
“Psychological intimacy with another person– it is being in a pool for two, where there are no rough pushes and even physical touches, but the movement of one causes waves that are felt by the other.(Researcher, 31 years old).
Content analysis of judgments showed that many attribute several qualities to psychological intimacy at once:
identification;
Mutual respect
Similarity of characters
happiness, etc.
More often than others, trust, ease and satisfaction in communication, understanding, empathy, emotional closeness are called.
An example of the definition of psychological proximity by a professional psychologist:
“Psychological intimacy is a hard-to-explain phenomenon. Outwardly, this sometimes looks without excessive affectation, on the contrary, positive emotions are, as it were, obscured, since there is no need to demonstrate them (the object knows about them, you are confident in him and in his attitude towards you, and from those around you, perhaps, these relations are worth a few save). Subjectively, it is some kind of mutual openness to each other, confidence in each other, attunement to each other, to the problems of the other, carried out without additional efforts. Sometimes close people look like conspirators, because they understand each other by hints and without words, they exchange glances, gestures, pauses (there are many non-verbal means of communication). Verbal communication is curtailed, since there is no need, firstly, to explain your thought for a long time, and secondly, to camouflage it with words. Demonstration of close relationships accelerates the break, means their disruption.
The following components of psychological closeness were identified in the judgments:
1. Understanding(mutual understanding, understanding from a half-word).
2. Confidence(maximum frankness, free, comfortable, fearless communication).
3. emotional intimacy(sympathy, joy from communication; empathy and sympathy, a heightened sense of the state of another person).
4. Adoption(tolerance for individual shortcomings of the other, recognition and acceptance of the other, perception of him as he is, absence of conflicts and the desire to give in, the desire to help).
5. Unity, proximity of goals, ideals, points of view(coincidence of values).
Based on this survey, five-rank scales were constructed to measure the degree of psychological closeness with a particular person.
In some definitions of psychological closeness, it is well traced that the basis of the feeling of closeness is identification with another person. Let's take two examples;
1. Student:
"Psychological intimacy– this is the maximum disclosure of one's inner content to the partner to such an extent that he can think in similar categories, experience the same images and feelings, but from the position of his "I"".
2. Student:
“Psychological intimacy is when you feel another person as a particle of yourself, there is no clear boundary between him and you, when communicating you smoothly move into him, and he into you, and this transition is carried out without obstacles.”
Based on the data obtained, four scales were developed to measure psychological closeness and psychological distance. Similar material was received on the disclosure of four scales (trust, ease of communication, emotional closeness, understanding).
The concept of "psychological closeness" is present in a number of domestic and foreign works, but it was not an independent object of experimental study. Therefore, the content of this term was not disclosed scientifically, but rather used at the level of ordinary consciousness. The phenomenon itself was described as something inherent in everyday life. As for the manifestation of psychological intimacy, their description is given in the analysis of friendship and love as paired relationships, which are characterized by high levels of human intimacy.
D. Moreno wrote that an aspect of sociometric theory that is often neglected is the problem of proximity. “The sociometric test is a test of social proximity... It is often confused from some kinds of its peripheral development, with tests of social "distance". But social distance is "divorced" closeness. The greater the distance, the more divorced it becomes. Distance, unrelated to proximity, promotes social symbolism, social nominalism, in short, social unreality. Sociometric theory by no means neglects symbolic relations, but they must be considered in the appropriate perspective, within the polarity of proximity - distance ”(Moreno, 1958, p. 97).
In works devoted to the psychological characteristics of friendship and love, the concept of psychological intimacy is illustrated by three features - trust in communication, understanding, subjective ease of communication.
In research (youthful friendship, carried out by a large group of researchers in Moscow and St. Petersburg) under the leadership of I. S. Kon (Kon, Losenkov, 1974), trust is associated with psychological closeness and ease of communication with peers and parents.
Relationships with peers are influenced by the degree of closeness between the child and the mother. It was found that psychological closeness of boys with their father leads to the development of sufficient self-control. Closeness with mother has a different impact on the development of the personality of boys and girls. Thus, girls develop confidence in people, endurance in a situation of frustration, self-confidence; in boys - great anxiety, emotional instability, a tendency to constant introspection; they are less frank with friends.
In our opinion, there are two levels of psychological intimacy: one - primary in terms of the time of occurrence - does not require a long acquaintance, mutual verification, is characterized by high spontaneity, unconsciousness; the other is rational, conscious, controlled by the subjects of communication, based on the awareness of the similarity of attitudes, values, norms, and life experience. The primary, or initial, level, which arises already at the first contact, is stable, hardly lends itself to volitional regulation, it is characterized by lightness, non-saturation of informal communication, a high level of trust and understanding, a correct prediction of the partner’s behavior in a given situation, and, finally, acceptance on a sensual basis. level, emotional closeness.
The mechanism of identification underlies the feeling of psychological closeness. The primary level referents should therefore be ease of communication, trust, emotional closeness, and acceptance of the other person. The referent of the secondary level, which arises at a certain stage of relations, is the idea of the similarity of attitudes, views, goals, understanding.
When you hear the question “what is the foundation of a successful (mature, good, lasting) relationship?” what comes to mind? From somewhere I still remember the phrases from childhood: “mutual understanding”, “respect”, “support” - and I don’t detract from the importance of these components in a relationship, but, in my opinion, this is still not their basis.
In order for a relationship to be happy, and, most importantly, long-term, four foundations are needed, or rather, intimacy:
- at the physical level
- on the emotional
- intellectual,
– and, finally, spiritual.
Physical proximity.
This is perhaps the most pleasant and most short-lived, in the absence of other bringing together factors, the basis of relationships - most often they begin with the fact that partners attract each other physically. Mutual liking and attraction can burn out very quickly, even without the proverbial physical contact, if not combined with other levels of attraction. In order to stay together, you need something much more than just passion, and it seems to me that everyone knows this feeling - when you really want to be together, but you understand with your mind that apart from "chemistry" nothing unites you with a person. On the other hand, relationships that are built on other foundations in the absence of physical attraction cannot give people complete satisfaction. You can’t throw words out of a song, and this is exactly the case.
Emotional intimacy.
People are attracted to each other according to different principles, for example, similarity or opposite temperaments. I don’t know a formula that would guarantee success here, I only know that if you are emotionally uncomfortable with a person, if he dominates you or you discover behavior that is not typical for you next to him, you literally change beyond recognition, and you can say “this is not me ", such a relationship is doomed. I believe that we can change and mutually enrich each other in a relationship, but if a partner, for example, reinforces your bad qualities, this is the opposite direction of healthy development. One of the most precious gifts that relationships bring is the ability to be yourself, and you can’t refuse it, just as you can’t agree to conditions when you have to be someone else. In my understanding, emotional intimacy is also the speed with which both partners move forward in a relationship, passing through the stages of passion, falling in love, coming to love. You will not necessarily come every second, but it is important to understand where and how you are going, and for this you need to talk.
Intellectual closeness.
This is a commonality of interests, an intellectual “enchantment” with each other: even if you do not hold the same views on everything, you are happy to share points of view, are able to understand and teach each other. Here, not only approximate equality in intellectual development is important, but also the direction of this development: both people can be smart, but their interests do not intersect at any point, or there is a constant clash of views. American films often illustrate the impossibility of a man and a woman being together if one of them is a staunch democrat, and the other is an ardent republican. In our country, political views do not play such a big role, but the life priorities of the partners must coincide.
Spiritual closeness.
This is the highest and most difficult to explain level of intimacy. In my understanding, intimacy in spirit is, firstly, accepting your partner as he is, and the features of his character as part of a single whole, and not trying to change him. If he changes himself (and this inevitably happens in the process of development), accept these changes with love and joy for the beloved. Secondly, spiritual intimacy allows us to experience “giving” love, not “taking” love: in the first case, we want to give happiness to a partner, and in the second, we want to receive from him. On a spiritual level, we understand that giving love is the highest happiness for ourselves. Thirdly, relationships in which there is spiritual intimacy motivate us to work on ourselves and develop - not because it is required of us, but because it is our sincere desire.
Of course, we learn best from experience, but there are a few things you can do ahead of time to determine if two people have all the foundations for true love and a lasting, productive relationship. Being honest with yourself and each other can keep you from getting into a relationship that doesn't have a happy future. ©
Proximity- one of the most important foundations and characteristics of the positive pole of relations of the "sympathy - antipathy" type, which determines the cause and at the same time the consequence of the established and relatively stable attraction relationships between people. The concept of "-proximity" -, in particular, is widely used in the works of E. -Erickson, who considers proximity as the ability of one person to take care of another, to share everything essential with him without fear of losing himself (V. -I. -Ovcharenko) . In socio-psychological terms, the concept of "-proximity" is practically the antonym of the concept of "-social distance"-. In fact, in the first case, we are talking about a system of relationships and interpersonal mutual perception built in the logic of identification and affection, and in the second - confrontation, a kind of interpersonal confrontation and alienation. Forms of manifestation of intimacy can be different both in psychological content and in the degree of severity, emotional richness. So, for example, the phenomenon of intra-group favoritism can also be considered in the logic of the manifestation of proximity. In informal companies, intimacy takes, as a rule, the forms of friendship and true friendship, and in the family - the form of kinship and love. The simplest methodological technique that allows fixing the psychological closeness between people can be considered a sociometric procedure, originally aimed at diagnosing relationships of the "-sympathy - antipathy" type. At the same time, the psychological closeness between people in groups of different levels of development is far from the same grounds. So, in groups of a low level of psychological development (diffuse groups and associations), the decisive factor in the formation of specific relations of psychological closeness is interpersonal affection not related to the activity plan, and in groups of a high level of psychological development, "friendly relations" are largely mediated by the content, tasks and goals of joint activities of partners.
The problem of psychological proximity and social distancing of the subjects of interaction is clearly a key one in the framework of socio-psychological science. To one degree or another, almost all researchers working in the field of group psychology and social psychology of the individual, as well as social developmental psychology, in one way or another, touched on this range of issues in a meaningful way. So, for example, exploring the process of identity formation, E.-Erickson came to the conclusion that it is the ability of an individual to establish forms of closeness with interaction partners that are adequate to the situation is one of the main manifestations of a qualitative personal identity in social life. At the same time, in a critical, from the point of view of identity formation, adolescence, the relationship at the level of identity - proximity is bilateral. In other words, at the stage of psychosocial moratorium, intimacy is not only a consequence, but also a condition for the full development of the personality.
According to E.-Erickson, "the fact that many of our patients &ldquo-suffer a catastrophe&rdquo- at an age that is more correctly considered preadult than postadolescent is due to the fact that often only an attempt to enter into intimate friendship and rivalry or sexual intimacy fully reveals latent weakness of identity.
The correct &ldquo-docking&rdquo- with others is the result and a test of the strength of the image &ldquo-I&rdquo-. Since the young man is still looking for tentative forms of intimacy in friendship and rivalry, in sexual play and love, in dispute and gossip, he experiences a special tension, as if such a tentative “docking” was directed to interpersonal unity, reaching the loss of identity and requiring tension of internal reserves, caution in achievements. If the young man is unable to relieve this tension, he must "isolate" himself and engage (at best) only in stereotyped and formalized interpersonal relationships, or he may, through more and more hectic attempts, often accompanied by depressing failures, seek intimacy with the most incredible partners. Since the sense of identity is lost, even friendships and activities turn into desperate attempts to establish vague contours of identity through mutual narcissistic reflection: falling in love in this case means turning into someone else's mirror image, harming oneself and the "mirror" -. ... The "ego" thus loses its ability to succumb to sexual and affective sensuality in merging with another individual, ... merging with another becomes a loss of identity. All capacity for reciprocity is in danger of being suddenly disturbed, and the consequence is a desperate desire to start over again, to return to the original confusion and rage in a way that only very young children do.
At the same time, it is important to understand that the ability of an individual to establish full-fledged close relationships in no way means the formation of some fixed positive attitude towards the social environment. It is, rather, the ability for wide variability in the continuum "-acceptance - rejection" - while maintaining the integrity of the personality: "-It is necessary to recall that one of the components of closeness is distance, that is, the willingness to reject, ignore or destroy those forces and those people whose the essence seems to threaten its own. Intimacy with a certain part of people or an idea will not be truly complete without the effective negation of another part. Thus, weakness or excess in rejection is an essential aspect of the inability to achieve intimacy due to incomplete identity: one who is not sure of "- his point of view "-, cannot reasonably reject" - .
Under these conditions, all attempts to establish relationships of proximity inevitably acquire the character of an idealization of the object to which they are directed. If such attempts are successful, the relationships that arise, no matter what external forms they take (sexual relations, business interaction, friendship, etc.), in their psychological essence, are, as a rule, symbiotic dependence. This explains the fact that "-young people often demonstrate quite pathetically that salvation for them is possible only as a result of merging with a leader - the leader is an adult who has the ability and desire to act as a reliable object for experimenting with rejection and a guide to the most the first steps towards intimate reciprocity and legitimate rejection.The older teenager wants to be the disciple or follower, the sexual "servant" or "client" of such a person.If this fails, as often happens due to the absoluteness of this person, the young man turns to intense introspection and self-knowledge, which can lead him to a state bordering on paralysis. From the point of view of symptoms, this condition manifests itself in a painful sense of isolation, disintegration of inner integrity and identity, a feeling of all-encompassing shame, an inability to feel the achievements from any activity "- .
It is quite obvious that such young people constitute a clearly defined risk group, subject to the influence of destructive leaders, authoritarian and totalitarian ideologies. It is no less obvious in the light of the foregoing that a necessary condition for the formation of a qualitative identity and a full-fledged ability to establish relationships of proximity is the presence of favorable socio-psychological conditions (including the organization of the environment for the life of the individual and the institutional support of its vitality by society), providing ample opportunities for role-playing experimentation. and interpersonal interaction in the logic "-subject - subject" - in adolescence.
Meanwhile, modern Russian society not only retains a number of social, political, and economic factors that significantly limit personal activity of this kind (for example, the relatively late separation of young people from their families of origin, etc.), but periodically there are calls for the introduction of separate training for boys and girls, aimed, in fact, at strengthening the personal isolation of adolescents and young men, allegedly in the name of "-morality"- and "-traditional values"-. This kind of "innovation" not only does not contribute to the solution of such really urgent and interrelated problems of Russian society as the demographic crisis and the crisis of the family, but also exacerbates them, since individuals with confused identities are simply incapable of establishing interpersonal relationships, which are the basis for creating a truly functional family.
As E. -Fromm writes, "-there is only one form of closeness that does not hinder the development of the personality and does not cause contradictions and loss of energy, this is mature love - this term I mean complete closeness between two people, each of whom retains complete independence and in in a sense, separation.Love truly does not cause conflicts and does not lead to loss of energy, since it combines two deep human needs: intimacy and independence "- . The fact that such relationships based on the dynamic balance of "acceptance-rejection" are a prerequisite for preserving the family and maintaining its functionality is confirmed by numerous sociological and socio-psychological studies: "study after study shows that unhappy spouses show intractability, authoritarianism , tend to criticize and suppress each other ... Happy couples learn, sometimes with the help of psychological training, to refrain from harshness and cowardly pouring fuel on the fire, to argue honestly, expressing their feelings in a manner that is not offensive to the opponent ... "-.
Note that all of the above is true both in the context of marital and parent-child relationships. Parents incapable of mature love tend to use the child as a convenient object for sublimating their own infantile childhood fantasies. It is important to understand that destructive interaction of this kind can take a wide variety of forms - from openly cruel attitude towards children to hypertrophied, erected into a kind of cult of caring for them.
It is quite clear that the ability to establish adequate relationships of intimacy is essential and largely determining not only from the point of view of the individual's prospects in terms of creating a full-fledged family, but also in a much broader social context. So, for example, individuals in whom this ability is significantly limited, as a rule, cannot be fully integrated into the group, "-getting stuck" - at the stages of adaptation or individualization. In the role of leader, they are prone to an authoritarian management style, substituting bureaucratic procedures for the creative and creative press, while at the same time risking becoming a virtual puppet in the hands of a "strong" deputy or even a secretary.