Many people entering therapy suffer from a lack, and often a total absence of, intimate conversations. You could fill a book with reasons for this desert of intimate dialogue without exhausting its sources. Commonly, defensiveness, competitiveness, timidity, greater desire to speak than to listen, and a simple lack of time and energy after getting the kids off to school before running to work, fighting traffic on the way home, predating, eating and cleaning up dinner, putting kids to bed, paying bills, and finally falling asleep oneself all combine to limit intimacy. But, perhaps the most important reason is ignorance of what an intimate conversation looks like. Fostered by never having experienced the level of interpersonal honesty intimacy requires, people wander through a conversational desert unaware of what they are missing.
My description of the commonality of conversation deserts may sound overwrought, but my therapeutic experience tells me differently. Over the decades, I have too frequently been amazed by the simple healing power of offering people the opportunity to engage in an ongoing intimate conversation. Each session is stored as a unique gem, which, over time, gets strung together into a necklace of profoundly transforming value. Simply being listened to with curiosity and care can be the fundamental corrective emotional experience for many.
The Elements of an Intimate Conversation
The elements of an intimate conversation are simple, yet often quite difficult. First is the sheer intention to enter into an uncommon level of relating, both to oneself and to others. It is difficult for many to form this intention when they do not yet know exactly what they are intending, not having experienced the level of presence within interpersonal interactions demanded by intimate discussions. And yet, intention to enter unknown territory is a prerequisite.
Let me illustrate with an anecdote. I was recently engaged in chatting with a young woman from India. When I mentioned nearing my 80th birthday and not having the same faith in my body’s taking care of me that I remember having as a youth, the woman asked the stark question, “What do you have faith in?” As the rest of us around the table stopped to shift to the deeper level of discourse this question pointed toward, I pondered my initial thought and feeling on this same level.
Here are the second and third elements of an intimate conversation. First was the woman’s intention to drop below our chatting. She offered an invitation by the second element—a deeply personal question evoking thoughtfulness and expressing interest in my inner world. It takes courage to risk such a question and skill to push softly without precipitously intruding into tender territory. On the other hand, if no one shares the questioner’s intention to drop to a deeper level, someone will quickly divert the conversation. Perhaps someone will say, “Let’s not go all religious now.” Or, “Well, that’s a personal question that I don’t need to answer.” Or even, “Is there any more of that lovely dessert?” Even a chuckle when saying, “Whoa, too heavy,” or “Time for me to go to the bathroom” is enough.
The third element of an intimate conversation is the willingness and ability to tolerate silence. A pause in conversation while someone ponders the leading question heralds arrival of the unknown. Uncertainty often raises anxiety, sometimes leading someone else to start answering. In the anecdote begun above, I sat for several quiet seconds. We all sat quietly until I began speaking about how my spiritual needs move more in the direction of gratitude and less toward faith. This opened a rich sharing in which everyone participated.
The fourth element of intimate conversation is the ability to search within oneself well enough to discover your own thoughts and feelings. Responding to a question designed to lead you into deeper dialogue with a performative answer kills the moment. Offering an answer that is molded primarily by what you think will impress the questioner or with an answer designed to “look good” diverts from the integrity required for real presence. Without an answer that meets the level offered by the questioner, momentum toward intimacy stalls. Better to say you don’t know how to answer than to resort to performance.
A fifth element of intimate conversations lies in the avoidance of over-intellectualizing, often seen in someone’s analyzing someone else’s comments. For example, at one point early in the above conversation, someone commented that I sounded like a 5 on the Myers-Briggs scale. This analysis threatened to pop us back to a less personal level, and several people objected by bringing us back to more personal sharing. This illustrates the difficulty of holding tightly to the intention to remain at the deeper personal level of presence needed for the delicate flower of intimate conversation. You need to be there, to stay there, and not bounce out of it by man- (or woman-) “splaning.”
Conversation in Therapy and Recovery
Intimate conversation requires patience and practice. Once achieved, many people find it incredibly rich and gratifying. I found that initiating people in therapy into deeper intimate conversation was one of the delights of my profession. I also found that many people in recovery from addiction enjoyed quenching their thirst for such dialogue. Their experience in Twelve Step meetings formed the foundation for such intimacy. AA/NA and Al-Anon meetings are an exercise in intention to be real, listening, never interrupting, and mulling over how what others say relates to one’s own experience.
In the end, intimate conversation is an art. Following a set of techniques never gets you to the free-flowing, surprise finding, closeness binding that comes from practicing the intuition-guided art of intimate conversation. Understanding the elements of this art can help you discover the obstacles in your way.