Introduction

We are living at a time of revolutionary changes in the mores, morals and memes of how intimacy is experienced and conducted in our society, and around the world. At such a time it is both challenging and necessary for all of us to be revisiting, reviewing and revising our thoughts about intimacy. In this book we have not only tried to include the standard fare, but also some of the frontiers and margins of the field of intimacy, such as intimacy in the digital dimension, intimacy with parts of oneself, potential intimacy with pets and with divine entities, the intimacy of friendship and friendliness, intimacy within intercultural couples, and intimacy in the context of Islamic culture in Iran. Another layer of organization of this book rests in its developmental approach. After a chapter reviewing the vast breadth of this topic, and its history in the psychoanalytic field, we move from intimacy in infancy, to adolescence, to friendship, to adult coupling and then to sociocultural and clinical dimensions.