Fear of commitment of self-help, Harvard psychologist Deborah DePaulo has written books such as "Singleism" on the stigmatization of single people. The use of the term "fear" or "phobia" imparts an inherent linguistic bias. It recasts specific lifestyle decisions (such as bachelorhood vs. marriage, or a conscious decision to remain childfree by choice) implicitly as generalised, irrational phobias while failing to identify, describe or address an individual's specific motives. For instance, the men's rights movement, citing high divorce rates and expensive alimony and legal costs, would speak not in terms of "fear of commitment" but of "marriage strike" to reflect their position that
Fear of intimacy Fear of intimacy Fear of intimacy is generally a social phobia and anxiety disorder resulting in difficulty forming close relationships with another person. The term can also refer to a scale on a psychometric test, or a type of adult in attachment theory psychology. The fear of intimacy is the fear of being emotionally and/or physically close to another individual. This fear is also defined as "the inhibited capacity of an individual, because of anxiety, to exchange thought and feelings of personal significance with another individual who is highly valued". Fear of intimacy is the expression of existential views in