Roots of Intimacy

895 Words2 Pages

Zoe Hicks is a licensed psychotherapist for the ‘love and relationship’ website YourTango.com, who recently published an article on, psychology website, Psych Central. She said there are five stages of intimacy: Infatuation, Landing, Burying, Resurfacing, and Love. She also states that, similarly to the Kübler-Ross model of grief, these stages might not happen in the same order, but “the intensity, the dullness, the gains, and the loss all mirror one another” (Hicks, 2013). The first stage is Infatuation; during this stage we become almost obsessive over this new person and relationship in our life. In addition, our dopamine levels increase, causing a full body euphoria, which leads to seeking out sex, but this stage does not last forever because one cannot last that long with euphoria like that. Which leads to the second stage: Landing. Landing is the stage in which you start to see things more clearly, and you notice little things that bother you, almost as if the hazy sheet of infatuation had been lifted. The end of this stage can either be “light and sweet” or “rocky and discombobulating” (Hicks, 2013). Burying is the third stage, and it is when the lives of each person in the relationship steps into the relationship. This stage is not always bad, Hicks says, “It’s a sign that the relationship is real and weaves into your everyday existence” (2013). The fourth stage is Resurfacing, this is the stage where the passion and excitement is restored. This can be brought on by a lot of things, but the easiest to understand and explain is, as a couple, solving a massive problem you two have been having. The final stage is, of course, Love. In this stage, the feeling of “I have it good” (relationship wise) rolls in, and th...

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...s a species, are capable of forming so many different types of relationships, even though this article does not cover that specific issue, I was able to us my textbook to determine what prepares us for intimate relationships. This article and the textbook helped me understand how development influences our ability to form intimate relationships. In the future, I would like to learn more about how different intimate relationships between animals form, and if there is a gene linked to the trait that allows us to form lifelong intimacy.

Works Cited

Hicks, Z. (2013, November 4). The 5 Stages of Intimacy in a Relationship. Psych Central.
Retrieved November 4, 2013, from http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2013/07/13/the-5-stages-of-intimacy-in-a-relationship/
Santrock, J. W. (2012). Essentials of Life-Span Development (2nd ed.). New York, NY:
McGraw-Hill.

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