By Alfred C.W. Davis
MBA, M.Div.

When couples come for counseling, the most common problematic issue is the subject of "emotional intimacy" or to be more accurate - the lack of emotional intimacy in the relationship.

In most cases, the woman is the partner who wants more emotional intimacy and the man often thinks that everything is fine. The more the woman pushes for increased emotional intimacy, the more the man withdraws. This dance of woman pursuing and man distancing is common. The interesting question is why?

In our North American culture, even though feminism has produced significant changes, men are still taught from the youngest age to be independent, strong, competitive winners who control their own emotions, solve their own problems, and fight their own fights. Men are taught to be rational thinkers. When I told my male friend about Daniel Goleman's excellent book "Emotional Intelligence" his immediate reaction was, "Isn't emotional intelligence an oxymoron?" - a combination of contradictory or incongruous words.

Emotion vs reason

The old paradigm was to do away with emotion and put reason in charge. Daniel Goleman documents research that proves the existence of two brains - the emotional brain (the amygdala and the limbic system) and the thinking brain (the neocortex and the prefrontal cortex lobes). He explains that the emotional brain is as involved in reasoning as the thinking brain because it provides the likes and dislikes of a lifetime that guide our moment-to-moment decisions. Conversely, the thinking brain plays an executive role helping us manage our emotions. In this way, the two brains are involved in a full partnership with feelings being indispensable for rational decisions.

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Are feelings important?

As Goleman says, "Our humanity is most evident in our feelings". Otherwise, we would just be smart, cold computers. Men in our society have learned to be action oriented. They are doers. They make things happen and they fix things. Men tend to listen to record important information. Watch two men converse. It tends to be competitive. Who has the right answer? Who has the best story? Who has the most interesting information? And when the information runs out, they stop talking. On the other hand, women tend to function in a different way. They listen to understand and feel the other person's situation. Then, they connect with the other person by reflecting back their understanding of the feelings. To generalize, men exhibit an "action empathy" while women more often exhibit an "emotional empathy". The word empathy comes from the Greek word "empatheia", which means - feeling into. Empathy is described as the ability to perceive the subjective experience of another person and to be attuned to the other person's feelings. When a woman is asking for emotional intimacy, she is communicating that she wants to be affirmed as a real person, not as a problem to be fixed.

Unable to put feelings into words

Dr. Peter Sifneos, a Harvard psychiatrist, coined a term in 1972 called "alexithymia". It is a condition where a person is unable to put feelings into words because he/she is unable to know his/her own feelings.

Part two will looks at 'what is Emotional Intimacy', 'barriers' and communication skills to help.

Alfred C.W. Davis heads Agape Healing International Inc. in Oakville, ON.ÊHe has his Master of Divinity degree majoring in Counselling, and is a Clinical Member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy. While practicing Christian counselling, he learned the processes that have led to the writing of the training manual, "A Theory and Process of Christian Counselling and Inner Healing." http://www.agapehealing.org

January 8/2009