Fear of Intimacy - Symptoms

Symptoms

Persons with this fear are anxious 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 which Annis, Cash, and Theriault describe as: “(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”.

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