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 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 child sexual abuse. Fear of intimacy is also related to the fear of being touched.