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Emotional blunting is a term sometimes used to describe a person’s limited emotional reactivity. They may not even be experiencing any emotions to feel, and people with emotional blunting may report feeling an unpleasant numbness instead of emotions.
There are many reasons a person might experience emotional blunting. This can include psychiatric prescriptions, substance use, and having certain mental health disorders.
What Are The Symptoms Of Emotional Blunting?
The defining symptom of emotional blunting is a numbing of emotional experiences. This includes how a person feels internally.
Emotional blunting can be accompanied by blunted affect. It might also be defined by an inability to express emotions in their face, behaviors, and other forms of communication.
The blunted affect that comes with emotional blunting is especially common among people with moderate to severe depression. It can also appear alongside schizophrenia or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
When people display emotions in a way most other people see as limited, experts sometimes refer to this as “flat affect.”
Emotional blunting may be associated with the following symptoms:
▪️inability to feel happiness and sadness
▪️restlessness
▪️loss of sex drive
▪️feeling disconnected from mind and/or body
▪️difficulty speaking
▪️lack of motivation
▪️difficulty socializing, maintaining and forming relationships
▪️fatigue
▪️difficulty feeling love or affection toward oneself or others
▪️indifference, even to activities or causes a person once found important
▪️difficulty concentrating
▪️forgetfulness
▪️a compulsion toward, or active engagement in, reckless behavior or self-harm (in order to feel something)
How Is Emotional Blunting Diagnosed?
Emotional blunting isn’t considered a mental health condition. Instead, it’s considered a symptom of an underlying physical or mental cause. If you’re experiencing emotional blunting, you should schedule an appointment with a mental healthcare professional. They’ll screen your symptoms and review your mental health history to better understand your unique circumstances.