Why do I feel so numb? Why can't I cry? Working through Emotional Numbing and Dissociation
Therapy in a Nutshell
Therapy in a Nutshell -Emma McAdam
4.8 • 658 Ratings
🗓️ 7 November 2025
⏱️ 15 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to another episode of the Therapy in a Nutshell podcast. I'm Emma McAdam and I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. |
| 0:07.1 | And this podcast is all about taking the life-changing, but usually kind of complicated topics of therapy and boiling them down into simple, easy-to-understand concepts that you can use in your daily life. |
| 0:18.8 | If you find today's episode as helpful to you, |
| 0:20.9 | please pass it on to someone else who could benefit from it as well. Each podcast |
| 0:24.5 | episode comes from a corresponding video you can find on the Therapy in a Nutshell YouTube |
| 0:28.6 | channel. Also, these podcasts are educational and don't replace the advice or direction you may |
| 0:33.4 | be receiving from a therapist or other health professionals. Now please enjoy the episode. |
| 0:37.9 | The other day in my live call with my members, a member asked this question, how do I recognize |
| 0:44.2 | my emotions when I feel blank? I don't see where I fit on the emotions wheel. Now, most people know |
| 0:51.1 | that naming an emotion is the first step to working through it. |
| 0:55.7 | But what if you just feel empty? |
| 0:58.3 | Like, you just can't cry, or maybe you feel flat or numb or shut down or even dead inside. |
| 1:05.1 | Now, this can be confusing and scary, but it's actually your body's natural survival response. |
| 1:10.1 | So in this video, we'll talk about why people feel numb, |
| 1:12.6 | and more importantly, five things you can do to help you start feeling again. |
| 1:20.6 | Emotional numbness is a common experience, and here's what it can look like. |
| 1:26.6 | Feeling flat, both physically and emotionally. |
| 1:30.3 | Losing motivation or interest in things that once brought you joy. |
| 1:33.3 | Not feeling happiness, but not even feeling sadness either. |
| 1:37.3 | Feeling detached, like you're watching your life happen from the outside. |
| 1:41.3 | Now if you relate to any of that, I would say you're not broken. |
| 1:44.9 | You're experiencing a nervous system response. But a response to what? Like, why do we go numb? |
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