A common complaint, about which there have been many self-help books, is of problems with intimacy, without which life has been said to lack meaning. The capacity for intimate relationships develops in early infancy, its prototype being the mother-infant interaction. If the child's needs are (as usual) satisfied when needed, the child develops a positive view of intimacy and the world in general. If not, these becomes absent and create a corollary view: that intimacy is dangerous and to be avoided, and that the world is unfriendly. And because early life experience is the bedrock of personality and adult behavior, these negative feelings won't change without psychotherapy, or a lengthy, continuing loving relationship which can be difficult to achieve with these fears.
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