The 7 Types of Intimacy: Reclaiming Connection in a Disconnected World (Episode #100)

There's something about you that I can't help but smile when you smile.

Welcome to the human intimacy podcast, Dr. Kevin Skinner with Marianne Michaelis, licensed clinical social worker. Marianne, happy New year.

Thank you, Dr. Skinner. This is great to be starting a new year and I'm excited to be here.

And to our listeners, we want to thank you. We just crossed over the 50,000 downloads and not only that, but today, Marianne is also our hundredth podcast. So I've been doing this for almost two years and I'm excited. Every week we've been able to produce, we've had different guests, but Marianne, you've been our mainstay and my now co host. Together we've been doing this podcast, but number 100, and I just am so grateful for our listeners who've made it worth our time and effort to do this. So gratitude to you.

Oh, thank you, Dr. Skinner. I remember the first time I was here, I was so scared and so nervous and it's definitely been a growing process. One thing that I've really loved is being able to go back and refer my clients and say, hey, we're talking about disclosure. Dr. Skinner and I did a podcast on this here. Go listen to this. So it's been an invaluable resource for me as a therapist to share this with my clients. You've had here to share information to help people, which has been our goal.

So today we are talking. This is the Human Intimacy Podcast. When I use the word intimacy to our listeners, you've heard me say this, but I'm going to ask the question. When I use the word intimacy, what comes to your mind? And my hope is, is that after today, in the next couple of episodes, that you can think about human intimacy in a new way, a refreshing way in it.

Dr. Skinner, I know that oftentimes people use the word intimacy and they use it synonymous or like a code word for sex. And I know that that's something that we've worked really hard to say. Like, hold on a second, we gotta look at this in a different way. Yes, sex is part. Like there is sexual intimacy, but there's a lot of other layers of that as well. And that's something that one of the tools that I use quite often with my clients is the intimacy pyramid that you've created. And being able to break that for my clients and say, hey, let's look at this, here's some different types. And breaking it down is so eye opening. And so as we've been talking for the last 99 podcasts, and going forward, really looking at intimacy, I think it helps us understand our world and our relationships a lot better when we're looking through this lens. So I know we're going to be breaking that down, and I'm super excited to start those conversations.

So, Marianne, I'm going to give you a little bit of my history on this, and I'm going to go clear back. I created the intimacy triangle probably 20 years ago.

Can I ask you a question, Dr. Skinner? As we get started with this, I would love to hear, when did you come up with this idea? Where did it come from? And can you give us a brief introduction to your intimacy triangle?

Yeah, so probably. Marianne, 20 plus years ago, I was talking with clients, and I was, quite frankly, I was tired of the way that we speak about sex and the concept of intimacy when we think about sexual intimacy. And. And that's been such a focal point in my career, I got concerned that we are not talking about what creates phenomenal sexual intimacy. And so I started thinking about intimacy in the most meaningful ways, because it's really not just an act. It is a relationship that has a deep connection of emotions and meaningful conversations. And then I started thinking about what breaks that intimacy. So I'm not comfortable. And you know me, I've always focused on safety. And when safety is not present, then intimacy really is not present. And then I was thinking about something that, to me, is the foundation of where intimacy goes wrong. And coined a term, and I've never seen somebody else talk about it this way. I call it psychological intimacy. I've heard people say psychological safety, but they use it in a different context. So then I thought, well, what is psychological intimacy? To me, Marianne, that was the foundation of it is safety through trust on loyalty and commitment. If you take those four parts out, trust, honesty, loyalty, and commitment, you're not going to have psychological intimacy. And if you don't have the psychological intimacy, then everything else in the relationship struggles. How do we communicate? Oh, and by the way, where does sex fit when we don't feel like there's honesty and trust and truthfulness, commitment in this relationship? Where does it go?

So can. Can I have you, Dr. Skinner? I'd love for you, because I. I know we really want to talk about this basic, like this, this very foundational one, but do you mind doing a broad overview just really quickly for our listeners so they can kind of understand these different layers of intimacy? Because I know you're talking about the sexual, and I know that's right at the very top. So get Us from the bottom to the top. And then let's go back and jump into.

Yeah. So before I do that, I'm going to go clear back, right? So I'm thinking, conceptualizing, I'm thinking about these. These different types of intimacy. So I bought the domain name human intimacy.com probably 15, 20 years ago, and I sat on it and I sat on it and I sat on it. How am I going to get this out there? How am I going to apply it? What's the context? And finally, a little over three years ago, I'm like, okay, I'm not going to sit on this any longer. It really happened when a dear friend of mine passed away and a lot of his content was lost because it was on paper anyway. So I'm like, I'm not going to let that happen. So human intimacy.com is where almost everything that I do is based upon getting my content into a place where people can access it.

So this is your legacy. This is what you've created for your legacy.

My goal is to help our society by helping them create better relationships. At the end of the day, if we are better at relationships, we're going to use less substances. We're going to be less likely to turn to addictive behaviors, whether that's pornography, sex, anything. When we have more meaningful connections, we're less lonely. We're just healthier people. And society is way better when we're healthier. And that's in relationships.

What I'm hearing you say, Dr. Skinner, and for our listeners. I just really want to point this out. You're a visionary. For you to have purchased this domain name and to have you've been thinking about it and noodling over it for 15 years or more, this is something you've just had there. I think about some of the advocacy work that I'm doing with protecting children online from, like, with AI, and I think about just the disintegration that we've seen in the past 10, 15 years due to online activities, especially with kids. I think about that and I think about the erosion of our intimacy where we are more and more connected to our phones or to our screens rather than to the relationships and the people around us. I look at that and go, isn't that fascinating that this is something you've been focusing on, trying to figure out how do I utilize this and how do we share this in a way and what a need for today? This is a huge need. And so the more we can talk about this, I'm just so grateful because There was some foresight that you probably weren't anticipating.

The truth is, Marianne, I've been concerned for most of my career just watching our society. We've become less connected, more lonely. We've turned to unhealthy things because we don't know where else to turn for connection. And so human intimacy.com really was given birth many, many years ago, but really has come to fruition now where I'm trying to put all of the content from my career into this website. 20 plus years ago, as I was looking about how do we help people get the vision of what real human intimacy is? And so when we're talking about going back to the original, your question on the intimacy pyramid or triangle, it really is a step by step process, not necessarily in order, but really, if you think about human intimacy in terms of how we let others into us, psychological intimacy is the foundation. When I feel safe with you, psychologically safe, I'm going to let you in. I feel more. I'm more likely to let you in, I should say. And then what happens next? We go through. It's verbal intimacy followed by emotional intimacy. And I separate those two things out because just because we have a conversation doesn't mean I'm sharing emotions. So how's the weather where you're at, Marianne? That. That could. That could lead to a verbally intimate conversation. It's rainy, and my daughter had a hard time getting out, and it was a challenge for her because they were driving to Idaho and. And it was Ice storm. We already had this conversation. I'm just recap. Recapping the conversation earlier, but that's a verbally intimate conversation. I now know that your daughter had a hard time getting out. That's what you shared with me.

That's what's been going on in my life that I've been carrying. And then you can ask more curious questions about that to drive it deeper. Yeah.

And if I then said, okay, Marianne, are you nervous with her on the road?

There's a couple really bad passes that I'm really concerned about. The weather today. Yeah, that just went into my emotions, where I'm at with that.

And now I'm speaking to possible fear. Right. And so, yes, if you said, Dr. Skinner, I am worried. I'm nervous about that. Then I get to know even more about what you're feeling. Fear, excitement, anticipation, things that I'm looking forward to. So that deepens the conversation.

This is super interesting because I know of a lot of relationships where we just stick to the weather, where it is about that safety, that we've got to have that basis of that safety. So when you ask me, I could say, yeah, I'm worried, and I could leave it at that versus, oh, yeah, let me tell you about these passes that are scary and my emotions about that. It's all coming back to how safe do I feel opening up and disclosing information to you and being vulnerable with you.

That's right. So the difference between verbal and emotional, I separate those out. And then we go into what I call cognitive or intellect, intellectual intimacy, where I'm able to share things that I'm interested in. So let's say that I went to a play with my wife and we talked about the characterization and we talked about that play itself that could be verbal, but it's also a deeper. Because now we're sharing an intellectual interest. This past year, my wife finished up her social work degree, and we've had more conversations about that in the last year than maybe in our entire marriage. Because I haven't been able to talk about concepts because my wife was an accountant. And so now we're having some conversations about concepts related to therapy. And she's saying, if a client was struggling with this, how would you deal with it? And I'll share my ideas. And then I ask her about things that she's learning. And she shared a really fascinating concept with me this year about differentiation. And it's something that I started my career with, but I've really kind of put on the background. But it's not going to be in the background anymore because it's such a helpful concept. And so now we're brainstorming together, and intellectually, it's been very stimulating.

And I think for me, Dr. Singer, that's where I love to connect. It's this. Here's an idea. How do you see this idea? There has to be safety there. If I bring up something and you shut it down or I feel like I'm stupid or I don't feel like I can explore with curiosity, that's needed for that level of intellectual intimacy. Yeah.

So now we've talked about those three with the foundation, which is really the fourth is psychological. And every time you're coming back to. But I have to feel safe. Right. That's why the psychological safety is so foundational here. When people think about intimacy and you forget that part, everything else crumbles, like how willing am I to share my emotions with you, deeper emotions with you? If I don't feel psychologically safe or I don't feel that with you, I'm not going to. I'm going to hold back. So when I started looking at intimacy as a whole, that had to be the foundation. That. That's why it's at the bottom. But everything else can build on it. If I go from cognitive intellectual intimacy into what Hal Stewart suggested, which is. He called it creative intimacy.

This is Dr. Dr. Hal Stewart.

Yeah, Dr. Hal Stewart. He's the one who suggested he. And through Dr. Karen Strange, our friends, they said, well, what about creative intimacy? I thought that is beautiful concept because now a couple's being creative together. And I thought that is. That is exactly a concept that I had not yet incorporated into the model. So kudos to Dr. Stewart. I appreciate his work. And the reason that matters to me is I remember a couple that came to me and they were using their creative brains. And every time they use their creative brains together to do something, that's when they bonded. And when they weren't doing that, they were fighting. I'm like, what is it about this creation? And so I thought, the more I thought about. It's like when couples are working on a project together, sometimes they don't do it well because it's fighting. I've got to do this. We gotta do it my way. But when their brains are aligned, like I was working with a couple, they were seriously considering divorce. And as I asked them some of the projects that they've worked on that were positive, they started talking about the backyard and working together. And all of a sudden, their lights clicked on and they were looking at each other. I'm like, oh, you guys just did it. Just did this creative form of intimacy. I wonder what you're afraid of, why you can't go back to that space. And it was just one of those conversations that really, in many ways, they were able to see what was actually going on.

And I think this is something you and I have talked about in several podcasts concept that I learned from our friend Dr. Brett Williams. And that's the let us get on the same page together. You're not the problem. I'm not the problem. That's the problem. Let's work together on that problem. Let's get on the same side. Yeah, yeah.

Let's work on this together. So now we've got five of the seven types of intimacy. Just quick review for everybody. Psychological, verbal, emotional, cognitive, intellectual, and now creative. So the next one to me is where we really understand our have to know ourselves well enough. And that is spiritual intimacy. We are spiritual beings. Religion, not religion, doesn't matter. We are spiritual beings. And when I talk with people, I've been around the world to Europe and to Asia, we're spiritual beings. I'm absolutely convinced of it. But what's interesting is you find two people who can share their spiritual side with each other. Marianne. And you see, it's like the intimacy just accelerates.

Let me break that down with an example really quickly. I had a client who. His descent was his heritage. His descent was from islands. I don't remember exactly which island his. His family was from, but he shared with me how much his grandma loved him. He didn't speak the same language as his grandma. Language was not an option for them. But he knew when he was with her there was a connection there. And I think so oftentimes we think we hear the word spiritual and we think, oh, religion or faith. And I think we're just talking about being human beings and spiritual and how we connect one to another, not even with words. It's that feeling. It's that feeling felt. It's that. That eye contact, that feeling of, oh, I'm home once again, I'm safe. I think it's so important that we underscore that.

And Marianne, when I see people share spiritual form of intimacy, it may be in the mountaintops, it may be in a place that for them is sacred.

Right?

And it can come in individual relationships, and it can come as a community. I'll give you a very specific example to that. Many years ago, our neighborhood was dealing with a situation where one of our neighbors plane went down in the local lake and he was killed. And it was extremely painful and difficult. And yet I've never felt so much of a community connection in that where the family was supported by neighbors in ways that it still today, I think about that experience and the people that we bonded together with. It was a neighborhood that rallied. One of our neighbors was on the search and rescue, and he spent day and night in the lake trying to find the cockpit. He was not going to give up until he found the bodies. And that was just. That was the person who lived across the street because he was on search and rescue. He's like, I'm not going to quit until I felt. And that was bringing closure to this family. And then other neighbors rallied around, redid a roof. Other neighbors. It was Mills. Other neighbors. It was just a visit. I mean, it was a community of connection in a crisis and that form of spiritual intimacy in a community. It binded us together in a way that even to this day, I think about the widow and how strong and resilient she was. And is it just knowing the hardships that were going to come and knowing all of that? I look at that experience personally and I witnessed it in a profound way.

And I'm so glad that you brought that up because I was going to add. Tragedy can sometimes create some of that spiritual intimacy. And these all kind of blend in and out of each other as well. Because you were also talking about this emotion. Your community experienced something and you didn't have to find words to explain it. It was something that you didn't have words for to explain it, but it was something that spelt. And it's a different connection on a different level.

And I don't share this part of it often, but I'm going to just because I think it's an important part of this discussion. So at the time I was a religious leader in our neighborhood. And when I walked into that home, I felt things that I could not explain. Peace wise. I honestly, there's no way to describe some of the peace. It made no sense to me. The grieving mother and wife, because they were living together at that time, somehow I would walk out of that house and I would be uplifted. I was trying to support them. And it was exactly the opposite. Their hope, their faith, their courage. So I then, as the religious leader, trying to bring this community together of support. And I remember one of the guys, he looked at me and he was just. He was. I mean, the whole neighborhood was just crushed. But I looked at him and I said to him, if you could feel what's happening in that house, you would know they're okay. And that to me is what I'm talking about, a deeper form of spiritual intimacy. Marianne, when we can share those parts of us in profound ways, again, some things are not describable. They're just present and powerful. So that's spiritual intimacy.

Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that, Dr. Skinner.

So by the way, that's now six. Our listeners probably thinking, are you ever going to get to physical intimacy or sexual intimacy? Oh, by the way, that's the top of my triangle, right? And I put it up there because when we understand the other forms of intimacy, that's when we get deeper connection. I mean, that's when sexual intimacy is phenomenal because all the others are flowing up into this space of deeper connection. Unfortunately, our society, our media, our movies, it's the sexual intimacy is like the foundation. And then can we get to know each other? And it's exactly Backwards of the way it needs to be. Marianne.

Yeah, that's something that I often talked with my clients about when I show them, like, let's just look at these different levels of intimacy. And most of the time, it's flipped upside down. And it starts with the sexual intimacy. You know, I just. We went on a date, and sex is expected, and everything else has been bypassed. And that creates a lot of problems in the relationship when we bypass all these levels of intimacy that we need. Because really, when we're talking about intimacy, I think we're really also talking about attachment. And I know that you and I both look through a lens of attachment. What helps people to bond and connect and attach. And we've got to have these layers to be able to have that optimum attachment which we all, as human beings, we need. It's part of. Part of our survival is having this attachment and this connection. And I think so many times we get a counterfeit when we bypass these different levels.

And, Marianne, this is such an important part because, again, our society is focused so much on the sexual piece that what we've missed out on is the loneliness epidemic that we're in is, I think we put so much focus on the sexual part of it that we are not deepening and learning how to deepen these other forms of intimacy. And let me say, not this intimacy triangle. Also, if I was just to take out sex itself, the intimacy triangle would still fit in almost all of our relationships, right? Including the physical slash, sexual intimacy. We may take it out, the sex part of it, because that's between two people. But if we were then to say just a physical. Just a hug of a friend, we need a hug.

We need a pat on the back. We need. Yes. These are just parts of being human that we need, regardless.

So the intimacy triangle is not just for a couple. It could be a family thing. I mean, my point is, is when we are in healthy relationships, our physical and mental health are better. When we are better in relationships. Marianne, the formula is not complex. See, we think relationships are hard and complex. The reality is, the formula is not complex. We make it complex.

When we have these different components in place, we are just naturally drawn to each other. We are just drawn to deeper intimacy. We are drawn in relationships, usually to sex. When we have these. This is just another way of deepening this intimacy that we're talking about.

That's exactly right. And when we understand that as a human being, then why are we not pursuing it? Why are we letting things distract us from what matters? The Most. And that's the part that for me, Marianne, has been on my mind for 20 plus years as a therapist. Our society is only as good as we are in our relationships. The fabric of our society is the strength of who we are in our relationships. And if we understand that, then we can have greater joy, better physical, better mental health. We're less likely to turn to addictive behaviors. We're less likely to turn to things that are going to numb the brain because we know what matters the most. And that's what I'm hoping that we're doing here in this podcast, and that's what I want to do for the rest of my career, is I want people to have better marriages and better relationships.

So let me just make sure. Dr. Skinner, I think what we today we've given an overview.

Yeah.

And I think our next several episodes we're planning on really breaking each layer down. Is that right?

Yeah. So we'll break. We'll break them down. And Marianne, I'm going to be the upcoming Human Intimacy Conference, the second annual one. I'm going to be doing a two hour training for couples on what I call the intimacy repair method at that conference in March. So coming up in three months, the intimacy repair method. It's going to be a really in depth discussion of how to repair intimacy when it's been broken. And the intimacy pyramid that we've talked about today will be the foundation of everything associated with that.

Oh, that sounds phenomenal. Thank you so much today, Dr. Skinner. It's been lovely to have joined you and to have been part of this conversation. What's our takeaway for today? What's your takeaway that you've got?

You know, as we begin the new year, I would encourage all of our listeners to think about these types of intimacy. I'm going to put into today's show notes at our online course, the Human Intimacy Podcast Companion course, which is free on human intimacy.com I'm going to put in there the intimacy triangle. And so if you want to take today's concepts and put it into application, it's just a free download where you can look at it. You can score yourself, your spouse, partner can do theirs and you can look at your answers. I normally do this with couples and then I give way more depth into how to implement these into their relationship. So again, that's just a free resource today if they would like.

Oh, that's fantastic. And this, I'm so glad I've had so many clients say, where can I find this? Where can I access this and so I love that we're providing it here. And I would just invite our listeners, look at that and look at yourself. Where am I showing up? Where are the areas that I can do better? And also, once again, I'll come back to that compassion. You might look at it and have a lot of shame or feel like, oh, my goodness, all is lost. And so I think it's great to do an inventory and say, where am I at? And where. Where's. Maybe one thing that I want to work on this week that I can do better. You eat an elephant one bite at a time. And so it's just figuring out where I want to work on this and need to work on this.

Marianne, in my book, rebuild your relationship after sexual betrayal, in my book, I actually have a link for the Relationship Intimacy test. So to our listeners, I'm going to put that link in our course online, the free course, and it will also be there. So you'll get the pyramid and you'll get a link to take that assessment. If our listeners want to, they can go take that. It's going to be embedded in the companionship course online@human intimacy.com so they can take that assessment, the Relationship intimacy test, which, by the way, is probably a value of 2025. Just taking that test and that's going.

To help our viewers and listeners to be able to really look and say, where are some areas that we need some help? So it's an assessment to really not just look at it and say, here's how I think I'm doing, but you've got questions to really help.

Yes, it. It will really help them explore the relationship. So, free resources today, we want to express our gratitude again to you for being with us and invite you if you have not yet signed up for the Human Intimacy Conference. I got a great commitment today from one of my dear friends, Dan Oakes, who's going to come and be one of our presenters. Really excited that he's joining us. He's a phenomenal presenter and a dear friend, so I'm excited about that. So, anyway, some great experts who are going to be joining us and Marianne, thank you so much for your time.

Thanks, Dr. Skinner.

LAUGH when you laugh, something surround you. It's like you're shining, you're siren.