Intimacy: being in a relationship

Abstract

Considering all structural elements of a relationship, the concept of intimacy is, from our point of view, the widest, and also the most complex and controversial. This is due to its conceptual vulnerability (proximity and even overlapping of contents) and its long history of changes in its meaning. From our perspective, a definition of intimacy should involve its time and space dimensions where intimacy is being built in a multi-systemic, intra and interpersonal process. That is to say, intimacy is a capacity simultaneously individual and relational, developed throughout life, taking different forms, meanings and complexities according to the features and properties of relationships.