| The author examines the anxieties of intimacy and aloneness within a framework derived from interpersonal psychology (Harry Stack Sullivan, Lorna Smith Benjamin), family psychology (R. D. Laing, the functional family therapists, the Palo Alto School), and neo-personalist theology/philosophy (Martin Buber, Emil Brunner, John Macmurray, Paul Johnson). She identifies the capacity for intimacy and the capacity for aloneness (or solitude) as interlocking facets of healthy relatedness. She assumes that the I emerges gradually out of the Primal-We (Fritz Kunkel). She discusses the necessary elements for healthy development as outlined by D. W. Winnicott: a good enough mother who manifest primary maternal preoccupation and the development of transitional objects. She also discusses pathogenic parenting and the consequences of a breach in the Primal-We. Following Sullivan, she argues that all anxiety is interpersonal in nature. Anxiety elicited in the rhythm of withdrawal and return (Macmurray), and in privation and deprivation of inadequate parenting (Winnicott), is accompanied by uncanny emotions and elicits the defenses of hate, malevolent transformation, and primitive rage (Sullivan).; She next discusses anxieties of aloneness and the processes that develop the capacity to be alone. She described defenses against aloneness and aloneness as a defense in the major personality disorders. Here she includes an extensive examination of the schizoid condition, using the writings of Laing, Frank Lake, and Harry Guntrip. She then explores anxieties of intimacy as described in classic clinical literature, which may focus on loss of boundaries, on vulnerability to psychic danger, on the mutual attacks of self and others. Finally, she explores intimacy anxieties conceptualized in dialogue with her dissertation chair: anxieties focused on self image, the imperfections of disability, and the threat of differentness; anxieties related to 'being itself' (Nathan Ackerman, Mara Selvini-Palazzoli, R. D. Laing); anxieties aroused by the triangulation process (Murray Bowen), by differentness (Virginia Satir), and by the envy that follows spoiling (Melanie Klein); and anxieties related to not being fully known and to the discovery of self in intimacy. She ends with a discussion of the courage to be (Tillich) and an examination of Laing's ontological insecurity. |
