Chapter 6: Towards a Holistic Approach to Intimacy

Contemporary research describes intimacy as a type of relationship that encompasses understanding between individuals. This relationship incorporates feelings such as closeness, familiarity, and comfort. In this chapter, we discuss the way in which cognitive and behavioral models within psychology have sought to explain intimacy, arguing that they hold an underlying atomistic and reductionist conception of the term. We explain how intimacy has historically been stripped of one of its most important aspects: its affective and bodily substratum. Starting from a holistic notion of organism, we introduce an approach of intimacy that organizes lived experience and action. Additionally, we describe examples of how this holistic and organismic approach to intimacy is expressed specifically in conversation situations and dance.