Intimacy

Intimacy: Pastoral Psychological Essays (Fides, 1969) is Henri Nouwen's first book, published while he was teaching in the psychology department of the University of Notre Dame after his studies in psychology in the Netherlands and at the Menninger Clinic. It gathers essays written for students, seminarians and pastors in which he brings psychology and pastoral experience to bear on questions of intimacy: the student's search for identity and closeness, sexuality, prayer, faith and doubt, and the life of the priest and the community. The essays show the concern that runs through all his later work, the relation between the inner life and genuine relationship with others, in a more academic, psychological register than the spiritual writing for which he became known. It was later included in the collected volume The Spiritual Life.