Intimacy disorders in the counseling office

By Matthew Geske, LCPC

Clinical Director, CCI

For the ICR

In my 25 years of counseling work, many of the individuals and couples I have seen are suffering from what I would call an intimacy disorder.

The Oxford Dictionary defines intimacy as “close familiarity or friendship; closeness.”

This intimacy disorder can start in a child with a variety of tragic events, a serious illness or a death in the family, for example. Or, even more challenging, the presence of an alcoholic or abusive parent in the child’s life.

These difficult circumstances, as hard as they may be, can be weathered if the hurt individual has another person or community that can acknowledge the problem and provide a sense of closeness to the scared child.

Matthew Geske, LCPC

As a human being, a child of God, we are designed to be in connection with others and most of all with our Creator. A person’s ability to form intimacy with others determines one’s ability to live a full life. Remember how Genesis describes life in the Garden of Eden before the Fall: humans walk and talk with God with no defenses or barriers—true intimacy.

It is hard to hear the word “intimate” without placing a sexual connotation to the term in this modern age. One of the most precious characteristics God has given us, intimacy, has been robbed from us and must be restored in order to have healthy relationships and true closeness.

The problem comes when the hurt individual has no one to turn to and instead turns to a substance or unhealthy activity for comfort. For substances, this can be alcohol or drugs. For activities, this can be what I will call “acting in” or “acting out.” “Acting in” can take the form of self-criticism and unhealthy guilt. Acting out can be any repeated activity that distracts a person from emotional pain, the ache of wanting to be connected to others.

Connection through intimacy is what allows us to heal.

The use of substances — unhealthy acting in or acting out — is what I describe as false intimacy. False, in that it gives the illusion of intimacy, yet results in us being separated from others. In the counseling office, we see the extremes. Nobody wants to attend counseling unless something is majorly not working in their life or relationships. So, if somebody walks through the counseling door, I can reliably predict that he or she has been engaging in some form of false connection, thus an intimacy disorder.

In my own life, I can see the origins of my own intimacy disorder. Having tragically lost my father at a young age and being far away from extended family, my mother was ill-prepared to handle her own grief, leaving us children very much alone.

I became increasingly isolated and disconnected from immediate family and friends as I was left to grieve in isolation. Thus, I learned to “act in” to get my need for intimacy met.

Later in my teen years, I started to “act out” (a prime time for acting out). For me, it was angry rock and roll, reckless behavior and experimenting with drugs, all of which I used to soothe my broken heart.

I imagine if I were born in the 2000’s. “Acting out” would be excessive computer gaming, marijuana, online pornography and questioning my gender or sexual orientation. For young women, I would add social media and now asking ChatGPT for life advice. All of these are examples of false intimacy. The challenge is that, in the short term, all these activities are effective in comforting and distracting that deep hurt a young person feels, yet in the long run, they create havoc.

Intimacy disorder undermines a person’s ability to form deep, meaningful relationships with others.

Primarily working with men in my counseling practice, what I most commonly see is men who have been exposed to pornography at a young age, have had some difficult childhood experiences, have no safe adult to go to and then turn to regular porn use to cope. Then, when it becomes time to marry, he has a distorted idea of what true intimacy is with a spouse. Often, the spouse feels a lack of emotional safety, which undermines the marital bond. This causes all sorts of problems in the relationship.

Certainly, there is hope. Developing an open and honest relationship with others can start the healing process related to intimacy disorders. Being part of a community where openness and honesty are practiced can have a huge impact. That is why counseling and involvement in recovery groups can be so beneficial. But you must ensure that the counselor and/or the group are healthy, which is not always the case.

Stopping an unhealthy activity is a start, yet unless the ability for true intimacy is restored, a person will return to the same, or a different, way of “acting in” or “acting out.”

The pain must go somewhere, and healthy close relationships with others, and ultimately with God, is where the healing happens.

For Catholic men struggling with pornography and related issues, an excellent resource is peterkleponis.com/the-path-of-recovery.

Matthew Geske is a licensed clinical professional councilor (LCPC) and the clinical director at Catholic Charities of Idaho, a nonprofit that provides a range of services, including mental health, family support services, refugee and resettlement programs and assistance to individuals and families in need.