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What Is Emotional Detachment?
By Kendra Cherry | Updated on April 25, 202
Medically reviewed by Carly Snyder, MD, and summarized by Richard Lee, PUUR CEO
Emotional detachment refers to being disconnected or disengaged from the feelings of other people. This can involve an inability or an unwillingness to get involved in the emotional lives of other people. While this detachment may protect people from stress, hurt, and anxiety, it can also interfere with a person's psychological, social, and emotional well-being.
Emotional detachment can sometimes occur as a coping mechanism when people are faced with stressful or difficult situations. In other cases, it can be a symptom of a mental health condition.
Symptoms
There are a number of signs and symptoms of emotional detachment. These may include but are not limited to:
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Ambivalence toward others
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Avoiding people, situations, or activities
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Difficulty empathizing with others
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Difficulty opening up to other people
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Feeling disconnected from other people
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Losing interest in people and activities
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Losing touch with meaningful relationships
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Not paying attention to other people
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Poor listening skills, compulsion to "fix" others
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Preferring to be alone, being aloof w/ others
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Problems forming and maintaining relationships
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Problems expressing emotions, forced positivity
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Struggling to feel positive emotions
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Numbness, loneliness/felt-isolation, depression
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Procrastination, ruminating bad future events
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Low stress and anxiety resilience, low immunity
Causes
Emotional detachment can have many different causes. These can include past experiences and psychological conditions, but it can also be purposeful behavior that can be used as a way to cope or set boundaries in overwhelming situations. Some common causes of emotional detachment are listed below.
Experiences
Past abuse and relational deprivation. Emotional/physical/financial neglect, and trauma can contribute to emotional detachment.
In other cases, kids may develop attachment problems as a result of their abuse that contributes to problems with becoming emotionally attached and involved in the lives of other people.
Children who grow up in abusive situations may use this detachment as a way to cope.
Mental Health Conditions
Emotional detachment can also be a symptom of a number of psychological conditions. These can include:
Voluntary Behavior
In other cases, people detach emotionally as a way to cope with stress, establish boundaries, and reduce feelings of anxiety. This can sometimes be a positive coping mechanism in cases where you are facing a temporary problem, but it can become problematic if it becomes an overused pattern of behavior that affects your ability to form healthy relationships with other people.
In some instances, emotionally detaching can help protect people from the effects of traumatic experiences.
Types
Emotional detachment may also be a symptom of an attachment disorder. These may include:
Reactive Attachment Disorder: This condition may emerge due to childhood abuse and neglect. As a result, children are unable to form healthy emotional bonds with their caregivers. Symptoms can include problems controlling and expressing emotions.
Disinhibited Social Engagement Disorder: This condition may occur when kids fail to form meaningful attachments with caregivers. Symptoms include being overly friendly and affectionate with strangers and showing little to no preference for their primary caregivers.
Treatment
The treatment approach used to address emotional detachment depends on what exactly is causing it. Know that the vast-majority (possibly 99% of people) suffer emotional detachment disorder. Much of the developed world is so shame-driven and emotionally toxic that we are all being attacked and traumaized on a daily basis. So knowing this, you ought to have no shame evaluating your symptoms which is the 1st step to your relief and cure.
If your symptoms are related to a mental health condition such as trauma, depression, PTSD, or a personality disorder, you need to find a daily practice that will empower you with self-awareness, relational enrichment and help you connect emotionally, physiologically and socially. This, is the best treatment recommended by the world's top practitioners
and researchers.
Daily
If you are experiencing emotional detachment that is causing problems in your life and relationships, there are things that you can do to help reintegrate your emotional connections in your life. These include:
Practice Interoception & Expression of Your Feelings... this technique helps people focus on their body sensations and feelings in the present moment, and expressing them to others enables us to feel safe. Felt safety is the ultimate therapy.
Strengthening your closest and social relationships: As you begin to build greater awareness and experience of your own emotions, it is important to find ways to connect with safe people who will support your growth and you can support theirs. The best way is to practice active listening with compassion and empathy. This is particularly true if your emotional detachment is a response to adversarial relationships in your life.
Finding ways to be emotionally vulnerable: Learning how to open yourself up emotionally to yourself and others takes daily practice and time. Bravely choosing to surround yourself with safe people who understand your needs and allowing yourself the time you need to give back to yourself and others what you didn't get when you were younger (or even now) will empower you to gradually progress and improve your emotional experiences, expressions and intelligence.
No matter what has happened to you past or present; know that you are wonderfully made and your body and brain are designed to predictably improve (every time) under these foundational relational-emotional...techniques. They work if you work them (daily), but won't if you don't. You are empowered to choose. So choose new and brave!
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