emotional shielding
Protective psychological barrier
Emotional shielding is the practice of protecting oneself from others' feelings or from emotional harm.
Someone might use emotional shielding to avoid absorbing a partner's anxiety, or to guard against manipulation: After years of criticism, she developed emotional shielding that made her seem cold.
The term appears in self-help contexts and discussions of empathy and boundaries.
- guardedWary and restrained
- wallsVertical enclosing structures
- armorProtective combat covering
- defensiveProtective or easily threatened
- defense mechanismUnconscious self-protective mental process
barriers · protection · numb · detached · withdrawn · closed-off · self-preservation · fortress · distance · deflecting · hardened · heart of stone · mask · playing it cool · shell · boundaries · trust issues · hiding
emotional shieldingemotional vulnerability
Willingness to expose feelings
openness · defenselessness · unguardedness · rawness · receptivity
emotional shieldingunburdening
Relieving oneself of weight
catharsis · venting · wearing one's heart on one's sleeve · emotional release · effusiveness
emotional shieldingemotional intimacy
Deep personal connection
intimacy · emotional availability · emotional connection · trust · bonding
emotional, emotion, emotions, emotionally, emotive, emote, emotes, emoted, emoting