Previous researchers have indicated that military deployments have challenged married couples and contributed to relational strain. It has also been found that veterans in marriages lacking intimacy are at risk of psychological problems and suicide. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to fill a gap in existing research by determining if attachment style, likelihood of disclosure, and demographic variables (age, length of marriage, education, race/ethnicity) predicted marital intimacy for heterosexual married male Iraq War veterans. Attachment theory provided a framework for the study, measuring anxiety and avoidance in veterans, which contributed to secure or insecure styles of relating in marriage. Data were collected using an online survey, compiled from the Experiences in Close Relationships-Relationships Structures, the Likelihood of Disclosure Scale, the Personal Assessment of Intimacy in Relationships, and individual demographic questions. Participants included 353 male heterosexual veterans belonging to military social media networking sites. Results of a stepwise multiple regression analysis demonstrated that self-disclosure and attachment style were the 2 statistically significant predictors of marital intimacy for Iraq veterans. Further, secure and preoccupied attachment style and high levels of self-disclosure explained 38% of the variance of marital intimacy. Demographic variables did not predict marital intimacy in the current study. Social change implications include identifying veterans at risk of low marital intimacy, providing protection through strengthening couples' intimacy before and after deployment, leading to a potential reduction in veteran suicide.

Three hundred seventy-six college students responded to a measure designed to examine retrospective accounts of the physical affection received during early childhood. The study looked exclusively from the perspective of the adolescent. Assessing the importance of touch in human development, and the role it plays in adult attachment and the ability to form and maintain close and intimate relations with others was the purpose of the study. Six separate measures were used to assess the role of touch in adolescent development: three items from Gupta and Schork to assess physical affection (touch); Simpson's attachment style measure; Gerlsma, Arrindell, Van der Veen, and Emmelkamp's parental warmth measure; and Rosenthal, Gurney, and Moore's Erikson Psychosocial Inventory Scale to assess intimacy. Also, one-item measures to assess trust and parents' marital satisfaction were all utilized in this study. Results confirmed statistically significant relationships between parental warmth and touch, warmth and attachment, and intimacy and attachment. Related literature supported the findings of the study and point to the importance of parental warmth and touch in early childhood for competent social and emotional development during adolescence. Implications of the results and possible areas of future research are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlational and casual connection between identity and intimacy development in later adolescents using lagged data and multiple measures of each construct. Developmental paths were hypothesized from four theoretically based models and designed to investigate gender and sex role orientation differences in the relationship of identity and intimacy formation. Identity was measured by the Revised Version of the Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status. Both identity and intimacy were assessed by the Erikson Psychosocial Stage Inventory and the Inventory of Psychosocial Development. The Bem Sex Role Inventory and the Questionnaire Measure of Emotional Empathy were used to assess sex role orientation. Using a two-wave cross-lag panel design, the pattern of correlational dominance between identity and intimacy was examined and directionality inferred. The results indicate that when examining gender differences, with sex role identification removed from the assessment of identity and intimacy, identity appears to be a dominant precursor to intimacy for both sexes. However, sex role orientation does appear to mediate the identity/intimacy relationship, where for males femininity enhances the identity/intimacy association but does not change the general male pattern of identity predicting intimacy. For females, a masculine sex role orientation results in a pattern similar to either masculine or feminine males, while femininity is associated with a more fused connection between identity and intimacy

With increased access and use of pornography over the internet, the association between pornography use and marital distress needed to be examined in a quantitative manner. There was a need to discover if, and or how, marital relationships are impacted by internet pornography use. Assessment instruments were used to measure internet pornography use (Internet Sex Screen Test revised for pornography), marital adjustment (Marital Adjustment Test items #1 and #14), marital satisfaction (Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale), and marital intimacy (Personal Assessment of Intimacy in Relationships). The results of this study suggested the following; there was a significant positive relationship between the level of internet pornography use and sexual intimacy as experienced by the wife (r=.80, p=.05), there was a significant negative relationship between a husbands internet pornography use and intellectual intimacy as experienced by the couple (r=-.57, p=.05), and no significant relationship between a husbands internet pornography use and his responses to the various dependent variables, implying that he is unaware of how his behaviors impact his wife. The other intimacy scales, as well as the marital adjustment and satisfaction criteria were not significantly influenced. Sample size and the power of statistical results needed to be explained in order to address possible Type II errors. The results of this study should be viewed as preliminary because of the small sample size and homogenous sample. The results of these findings are discussed, along with clinical applications, and suggestions for further study.

A community sample of adult women (N = 581) were surveyed to determine whether internalized shame mediated the relationship between severity of childhood sexual abuse and adult perceptions of intimacy in couple relationships. Characteristics of abuse, duration of abuse, frequency of abuse, age when the abuse began, and physical force used during the abuse were used to determine severity of abuse. It was predicted that 1) women sexually abused as children (N = 318) and non-abused women (N = 263) would significantly differ in their levels of internalized shame and their perceptions of intimacy; 2) severity of abuse would be inversely related to perceptions of intimacy; 3) severity of abuse would be positively related to internalized shame; and 4) internalized shame would significantly mediate the relationship between severity of abuse and perceptions of intimacy. Through a MANOVA and structural equation modeling using AMOS, the results indicated a statically significant difference between levels of shame and perceptions of intimacy in abused and non-abused women. Results also indicated as severity of abuse increases, perceptions of intimacy decrease and as severity of abuse increase, internalized shame increases. Shame was found to be a complete mediator of the relationship between severity of abuse and perceptions of intimacy. Clinical implications, study strengths and limitations, and direction for future research are discussed.

This creative thesis includes five short stories that explore paradoxical ways in which people can feel alone, even if they are together. Although a combination of isolation and intimacy can occur in any human relationship, the stories in this collection spend much of their time with family circles in particular, considering the way that our closest, most permanent relationships can simultaneously prove the most intimate and the most isolating. The critical introduction that precedes the collection examines each story individually, discussing strategies and subject matter in terms of the collection's guiding concept. The introduction discusses the binary of intimacy and isolation, and how it relates to fiction's ability to evoke sympathy in its readers.

Traumatic symptoms are common for survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA), and such symptoms are often compounded by the presence of shame. While much is known regarding the negative impact of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) on CSA survivors, less is known regarding the relationship between PTSD and shame and little to no research has investigated the impact of PTSD on intimacy mediated by shame for CSA survivors. The current study sought to fill this gap in the literature by exploring this phenomenon. Data was randomly collected from households in the following cities: Chicago, IL; New York City, NY; Salt Lake City, UT; and San Francisco, as well as the Utah State Penitentiary. Those who had completed the Trauma Symptom Checklist-33 (TSC-33), the Personal Assessment of Intimacy in Relationships scale (PAIR), and Internalized Shame Scale (ISS) were included in the dataset. Exclusionary criteria included females under 18, males, those who had not experienced sexual abuse, and those who had not completed the requisite scales. In all, 318 participants met criteria for the current study. The current study hypothesized that: (1) trauma symptoms would be negatively related to intimacy, (2) internalized shame will be negatively related to intimacy, and (3) internalized shame will significantly mediate the relationship between trauma symptoms and intimacy. The hypotheses were analyzed utilizing Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and the associated AMOS 19 and MPlus software. Results found that trauma symptoms negatively impact intimacy and that shame has a mediating impact on this phenomenon. Further, shame was found to be a full mediator. While results of the current study illustrate the mediating role of shame on trauma symptoms, this mediation is within a relational rather than an individual context. Consequently, the current study fills an important gap in the literature regarding the interplay between shame and trauma for CSA victims within a relational context. Results of the current study give direction regarding the treatment of trauma and point to the importance of addressing shame in survivors of sexual abuse.

Magnusson, A. ”…it’s a matter of great importance actually”. Coping strategies to sexual consequences due to cancer treatment. Expectations on sexuality and rehabilitation. Malmö University: Faculty of Health and Society, 2009.AbstractBackground: An increasing number of people in Sweden are living with the experience of either having or having had cancer. Earlier research describes extensive sexual dysfunction and a lack of aid and information to cancer patients and their partners.Aim and method: The aim with this study is to explore how sexuality is affected by cancer treatment and to elucidate if specific strategies are developed by patients to manage sexuality and how medical service can give support and help. Two focus group discussions and five interviews was accomplished with ten informants during March and April 2009 Results: All ten informants have had sexual changes as a result of cancer treatment. Sexuality had been given new expressions regarding to individual limitations. Not everybody had remaining problems but information and rehabilitation was described as insufficient or none existing. The informants had several unanswered questions but also suggestions how to improve rehabilitation.Analysis and conclusion: The construction of sexuality in cancer disease is complex. On one hand sexual changes like impotence or pain is a reminder about existence and death. On the other hand an increased feeling of intimacy was depicted and also a higher capability of mindfulness was reported during sex. A variety of different coping strategies was used to reach meaningfulness and new constructions were made concerning sexuality whereupon the experience of quality of life was changed.

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The institution of marriage has historically functioned as the foundation of both the Iranian family and society. This study examines the significant changes that have occurred during the rule of the Islamic Republic that have delayed marriage formation. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Iran between 2017 and 2020 and in-depth interviews with more than one hundred university-educated young Iranians, this dissertation explores new patterns of youth intimacy, the evolution of young people’s perspectives on premarital relationships, and explores the reasons behind the widespread delay in marriage. Since the Revolution of 1979 that led to the fall of the Shah’s modernizing regime, Iranian society has experienced many changes in the realm of marriage and premarital intimacies despite the Islamic Republic’s imposition of conservative religious values designed to reinforce traditional marriage practices. These have included a decline in marriage rates and an increased rate of divorce, as well a rise in the ages of first marriages accompanied by alternative lifestyles that reject marriage as an institution. While economic difficulties, increases at the level of education, and the existence of discriminatory family laws in Iran have often been cited as reasons for these changes, this dissertation argues that it is a dialectical interaction among sociocultural, psychological, moral, and legal factors that better explains this change. Interviews revealed that conflicting attitudes of idealism, cynicism, and moral ambivalence play a significant role in marriage postponement. This was most apparent in the young peoples’ dissatisfaction with khāstegāri, a traditional method of marital partner-evaluation by a young person’s family, which was rejected because it conflicted with a more personal and intimate model of partner selection. That model, however, suffered from excessive idealism that set the standards for a suitable partner so high they could not be easily met. Classical Persian poetry, with its ideals of unconsummated love, reinforced such romantic idealism. In response, a growing number of educated middle-class young Iranians chose to enter into intimate relationships outside of marriage facilitated by the emergence of new social spaces that allowed these new intimacies to flourish in spite of government attempts to discourage them. The research concluded that as a result of marriage postponement and the rise of premarital and non-marriage practices and lifestyles such as dating and cohabitation, intimacy has been transformed in contemporary Iran and as a result, significant changes are recognizable in gender relations and family structure. Young women and men demand a more egalitarian relationship, mutual emotional support and intellectual compatibility, a satisfying sex life, and someone with whom they can share their interests. / 2026-03-25T00:00:00Z