The Government of Intimacy: Satiation, Intensification, and the Space of Emotional Reciprocity

Abstract

Considering a series of transformations in the fields of marriage and couples counseling, family therapy, and so on in the United States from the turn of the century to the present, this article undertakes a Foucaultian analysis of the government of intimacy that seeks to broaden contemporary understandings of governmentality, biopower, and discipline. It traces a series of shifts and transformations in the government of intimacy, understood as a dynamic trajectory of sometimes dissonant and unstable assemblages centered on the maximization of mutuality, trust, and empathy within the bond of intimate life. The overall pattern of change is one of an intensification of forms of power that increasingly satiates subjectivity and intimacy itself with each successive form. Suggestions are offered for scholarship on governmentality and other Foucaultian and post-Foucaultian themes.