Emotional detachment - Wikipedia Emotional detachment From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search See also: Reduced affect display For other uses, see Detachment (disambiguation). This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This article needs attention from an expert in Psychology. Please add a reason or a talk parameter to this template to explain the issue with the article. WikiProject Psychology may be able to help recruit an expert. (April 2016) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Emotional detachment" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) This article relies too much on references to primary sources. Please improve this by adding secondary or tertiary sources. (September 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) In psychology, emotional detachment, also known as emotional blunting, has two meanings: one is the inability to connect to others on an emotional level; the other is as a positive means of coping with anxiety. This coping strategy, also known as emotion focused-coping, is used by avoiding certain situations that might trigger anxiety.[1] It refers to the evasion of emotional connections. Emotional detachment may be a temporary reaction to a stressful situation, or a chronic condition such as depersonalization-derealization disorder. It may also be caused by certain antidepressants. Emotional blunting as reduced affect display is one of the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. Contents 1 Signs and symptoms 2 Causes 3 Behavioral mechanism 4 See also 5 References Signs and symptoms[edit] Emotional detachment may not be as outwardly obvious as other psychiatric symptoms. Patients diagnosed with emotional detachment have reduced ability to express emotion, to empathize with others or to form powerful emotional connections. Patients are also at an increased risk for many anxiety and stress disorders. This can lead to difficulties in creating and maintaining personal relationships. The person may move elsewhere in their mind and appear preoccupied or "not entirely present", or they may seem fully present but exhibit purely intellectual behavior when emotional behavior would be appropriate. They may have a hard time being a loving family member, or they may avoid activities, places, and people associated with past traumas. Their dissociation can lead to lack of attention and, hence, to memory problems and in extreme cases, amnesia. In some cases, they present an extreme difficulty in giving or receiving empathy which can be related to the spectrum of narcissistic personality disorder.[2] Causes[edit] Emotional detachment or emotional blunting often arises due to adverse childhood experiences, or to psychological trauma in adulthood. Emotional blunting is often caused by antidepressants in particular selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) used in major depressive disorder, and often as an add-on treatment in other psychiatric disorders.[3][4] Behavioral mechanism[edit] Emotional detachment is a behavior which allows a person to react calmly to highly emotional circumstances. Emotional detachment in this sense is a decision to avoid engaging emotional connections, rather than an inability or difficulty in doing so, typically for personal, social, or other reasons. In this sense it can allow people to maintain boundaries, psychic integrity and avoid undesired impact by or upon others, related to emotional demands. As such it is a deliberate mental attitude which avoids engaging the emotions of others. This detachment does not necessarily mean avoiding empathy; rather, it allows the person to rationally choose whether or not to be overwhelmed or manipulated by such feelings. Examples where this is used in a positive sense might include emotional boundary management, where a person avoids emotional levels of engagement related to people who are in some way emotionally overly demanding, such as difficult co-workers or relatives, or is adopted to aid the person in helping others. Emotional detachment can also be "emotional numbing", "emotional blunting", i.e., dissociation, depersonalization or in its chronic form depersonalization disorder[citation needed]. This type of emotional numbing or blunting is a disconnection from emotion, it is frequently used as a coping survival skill during traumatic childhood events such as abuse or severe neglect. Over time and with much use, this can become second nature when dealing with day to day stressors.[citation needed] Emotional detachment may allow acts of extreme cruelty and abuse, supported by the decision to not connect empathically with the person concerned. Social ostracism, such as shunning and parental alienation, are other examples where decisions to shut out a person creates a psychological trauma for the shunned party.[5] See also[edit] Psychology portal Alexithymia Anhedonia § Social anhedonia Asociality Assertiveness Dissociation Dissociative disorders (in DSM-IV) Emotional contagion Emotional isolation Psychic distance Reactive attachment disorder Social rejection Splitting (psychology) Stoicism Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV References[edit] ^ "Emotion-focused coping". dictionary.apa.org. ^ Johnson, Stephen M (1987), Humanizing the Narcissistic Style, NY: Norton and Co., p. 125, ISBN 0-393-70037-2 ^ McCabe, Ciara; Mishor, Zevic; Cowen, Philip J.; Harmer, Catherine J. (2010). "Diminished Neural Processing of Aversive and Rewarding Stimuli During Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor Treatment". Biological Psychiatry. 67 (5): 439–445. doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.11.001. PMC 2828549. PMID 20034615. ^ "Emotional blunting: unresolved MDD symptom or effect of treatment?". Progress In Mind. 10 September 2019. ^ Williams, Kipling D.; Nida, Steve A. (2011), Ostracism, Consequences and Coping, West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University v t e Emotions (list) Emotions Acceptance Adoration Aesthetic emotions Affection Agitation Agony Amusement Anger Angst Anguish Annoyance Anticipation Anxiety Apathy Arousal Attraction Awe Boredom Calmness Compassion Confidence Contempt Contentment Courage Cruelty Curiosity Defeat Depression Desire Despair Disappointment Disgust Distrust Ecstasy Embarrassment Vicarious Empathy Enthrallment Enthusiasm Envy Euphoria Excitement Fear Flow (psychology) Frustration Gratification Gratitude Greed Grief Guilt Happiness Hatred Hiraeth Homesickness Hope Horror Hostility Humiliation Hygge Hysteria Indulgence Infatuation Insecurity Inspiration Interest Irritation Isolation Jealousy Joy Kindness Loneliness Longing Love Limerence Lust Mono no aware Neglect Nostalgia Outrage Panic Passion Pity Self-pity Pleasure Pride Grandiosity Hubris Insult Vanity Rage Regret Social connection Rejection Remorse Resentment Sadness Melancholy Saudade Schadenfreude Sehnsucht Self-confidence Sentimentality Shame Shock Shyness Sorrow Spite Stress Suffering Surprise Sympathy Tenseness Trust Wonder Worry World views Cynicism Defeatism Nihilism Optimism Pessimism Reclusion Weltschmerz Related Affect consciousness in education measures in psychology Affective computing forecasting neuroscience science spectrum Affectivity positive negative Appeal to emotion Emotion and art and memory and music and sex classification evolution expressed functional accounts group homeostatic perception recognition in conversation in animals regulation interpersonal work Emotional aperture bias blackmail competence conflict contagion detachment dysregulation eating exhaustion expression intelligence and bullying intimacy isolation lability labor lateralization literacy prosody reasoning responsivity security selection symbiosis well-being Emotionality bounded Emotions and culture in decision-making in the workplace in virtual communication history moral self-conscious social social sharing sociology Feeling Gender and emotional expression Group affective tone Interactions between the emotional and executive brain systems Meta-emotion Pathognomy Pathos Social emotional development Stoic passions Theory affect appraisal discrete emotion somatic marker constructed emotion Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emotional_detachment&oldid=991926461" Categories: Abnormal psychology Symptoms and signs: Cognition, perception, emotional state and behaviour Emotion Hidden categories: Articles needing expert attention with no reason or talk parameter Articles needing expert attention from April 2016 All articles needing expert attention Psychology articles needing expert attention Articles needing additional references from April 2016 All articles needing additional references Articles lacking reliable references from September 2020 All articles lacking reliable references Articles with multiple maintenance issues All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from October 2020 Articles with unsourced statements from September 2019 Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version Languages العربية 한국어 Edit links This page was last edited on 2 December 2020, at 15:36 (UTC). 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