“Intimacy requires courage because risk is inescapable. We cannot know at the outset how the relationship will affect us. Like a chemical mixture, if one of us is changed, both of us will be. Will we grow in self-actualization, or will it destroy us? The one thing we can be certain of is that if we let ourselves fully into the relationship for good or evil, we will not come out unaffected.”

American existential psychologist and author

Rollo Reece May was an American existential psychologist and author. He lived from 1909 to 1994 and is best known for Love and Will, published in 1969. He is closely associated with humanistic psychology and existentialist thought, and he was a major advocate of existential psychotherapy alongside Viktor Frankl. His work was shaped in part by his friendship with the philosopher and theologian Paul Tillich, whose influence he acknowledged in his writing.