Intimacy: Our Need for Connection: A Course With Julie Bondanza

Intimacy -- the feeling of closeness and connection that we all crave -- is essential in intimate relationships, as well as in relationships with friends, family members, and acquaintances. While intimacy is crucial to healthy relationships, it is easily undermined by our fears and other negative feelings.

The word “intimacy,” derived from the Latin word intimus or “inner,” refers to a person's innermost qualities. Intimacy enables us to bond with each other on many levels. To cultivate intimacy, we must be willing to share our innermost selves, to trust ourselves and the other, to be vulnerable. None of this, of course, is easy. We are all capable of shutting down to protect ourselves from hurt, real or imagined.

In this course, we will read four novels that delve into the complexities of intimacy:

Middlemarch by George Eliot (We will discuss this book in two sessions because it is very long and involves two important relationships.)

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

I’m looking forward to seeing you. 

Julie Bondanza, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist and a diplomate Jungian analyst who trained at the C.G. Jung Institute of New York, where she was Director of Training, a job she also held with the Philadelphia Association of Jungian Analysts. She has taught extensively in New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Washington, as well as for various Jung societies across the country. Presently she serves the board of the C.G. Jung Foundation of New York and continues to serve as its program chair, a post she has held for many years. Dr. Bondanza practices in Takoma Park and lives in Washington, D.C.