Getting Close to Others 5 Steps: How to Develop Intimate Relationships and Still Be True to Yourself: The Relationship Formula Workbook Series

Many desire an emotionally intimate relationship and yet react to the prospect by pulling away. They do this to obscure their true selves for one of two reasons. They fear rejection if they are to honestly reveal themselves to another. Or, it may be because of a foreboding sense that their identity will be taken away if they truly open up to another.

In either case, by pulling away they make themselves seem aloof and guarded and that makes rejection all the more likely. When it happens, their conviction that intimacy is not possible for them is reinforced.

For those caught in this web or for those who know people who are, author Jill P. Weber, PhD, a clinical psychologist, explains why a capacity for intimacy is not a fixed quality, but a skill to be developed and refined. This book is the fourth in her Relationship Formula Workbook series.

Weber shows how with practice it is possible to foster fulfilling relationships not only with romantic partners, but with family members, friends and coworkers. She draws on years of experience in her practice to layout doable strategies that fundamentally change an individual’s ability to find genuine emotional rapport.

Jill P. Weber, PhD, is the author of the four-part Relationship Formula Workbook series, of which Getting Close to Others 5 Steps is one volume. She is also the author of Having Sex, Wanting Intimacy: Why Women Settle for One-Sided Relationships, and she writes a blog for Psychology Today on relationships and self-esteem.

A psychology contributor to media outlets like CNN, the Discovery Channel, the Washington Post, and the Associated Press, Weber has also had her writing published in Healthy Living magazine, Huffington Post, and USA Today.