emotional distance
Keeping others away
Emotional distance is a withdrawal of intimacy or connection, a holding back from full engagement with others.
Someone maintains emotional distance by avoiding vulnerability, limiting disclosure, or staying detached: There was always an emotional distance between him and his father.
The phrase can describe deliberate self-protection or an inability to connect.
Keeping emotional distance from difficult subjects helps maintain objectivity.
- estrangementEmotional separation between people
- detachmentSeparation or emotional uninvolvement
- lonelinessState of lacking companions
- withdrawalAct of taking away
- pulling awayIncreasing gap from others
compartmentalization · disconnection · stonewalling · cold shoulder · avoidance · stoicism · playing it cool · ghosting · alienation · aloofness · self-protection · holding back · coldness · apathy · guardedness · indifference · going through the motions · dissociation
- alienationestrangement, social isolation, disconnection, exclusion, outsider
- emotional maskingmasking, suppression, repression, hiding, bottling up
- impersonalitycoldness, detachment, depersonalization, facelessness, anonymity
- emotional neglectneglect, emotional neglect, emotional unavailability, emotional deprivation, inattention
- parentinggentle parenting, child, mom, children, kids
- avoidanceavoidance, distancing, evasion, dodging, pulling away
emotional distanceintimacy
Emotional closeness between people
emotional intimacy · closeness · warmth · emotional connection · bonding
emotional distanceemotional availability
Receptiveness to others' feelings
openness · vulnerability · accessibility · receptiveness · responsiveness
emotional distancesecure attachment
Reliable caregiver-child emotional bond
enmeshment · clinginess · codependency · emotional security · emotional engagement