Understanding Why An Emotional Block Might Be Preventing You From Crying

Last updated on September 18, 2026.

If you have ever felt like your tears of sadness are "stuck," you know the frustration of experiencing an emotional block. Professionally known as emotional numbing, this psychological phenomenon occurs when your nervous system becomes overwhelmed and enters a self-protective "freeze" response.

A gentle shift in a calm system can create an expanding wave of healing. Just like water, a frozen or blocked nervous system can softly thaw and return to its natural flow.

While you might feel the intense physical pressure of a lump in your throat, your subconscious mind perceives crying as a potential threat to your emotional survival and safety. In trauma-informed care, this defensive freeze state is recognized as a primary trauma response.

Why Can't I Cry? 4 Root Causes of Emotional Numbing

When tears feel physically inaccessible, it is rarely a sign of being "heartless." Instead, it indicates that your mind and body are actively protecting you. Here are the primary reasons your emotional release may be blocked:

1. Nervous System Freeze Response (Dorsal Vagal Shutdown)

When you experience prolonged stress or intense trauma, your sympathetic nervous system (SNS) can become overloaded. Instead of triggering a classic fight-or-flight reaction, your body defaults to an evolutionary survival mechanism called dissociation or a dorsal vagal shutdown. Your brain automatically reduces the intensity of your emotions to protect you from psychological flooding. This response acts like a biological circuit breaker, temporarily cutting off power to your emotional expression.

2. Emotional Exhaustion and Burnout

Crying is an active biological process that requires significant metabolic and emotional energy. If you have been forced to "hold it together" through chronic stress for months or years, your emotional reserves can become utterly depleted. The underlying sadness remains, but your body lacks the physiological stamina required to initiate a physical release.

3. Unconscious Conditioning and Psychological Safety Walls

Childhood environments heavily dictate how we process adult emotions. If you grew up in a household where crying was punished, shamed, or dismissed, your brain learned to suppress tears as a safety measure. Messages dictating that you must be fiercely "independent" force the psyche to power through pain. Over time, this chronic suppression leaves no room for your nervous system to soften, pause, and safely feel.

4. Mental Health Conditions and Clinical Depression

While clinical depression is universally associated with profound sadness, it frequently manifests as emotional blunting or anhedonia (the inability to feel pleasure or deep emotion). This state leaves your affect feeling entirely "flat," rendering tears temporarily inaccessible.

Traditional Talk Therapy vs. Experiential Therapy for Trauma

You cannot force an emotional release. Putting immense pressure on yourself to cry causes the nervous system to tighten defensively. To release pent-up emotions, your body must first register absolute safety.

When dealing with deeply held, "stuck" emotions, traditional talk therapy (a "top-down" approach) can become too much of an intellectualized process. While you may gain brilliant cognitive insight into your problems, your body stays stuck in a freeze state, leaving you trapped in your head without an emotional release.

To process somatic trauma and unblock emotions, specialists utilize mind-body oriented modalities known as Experiential Therapies (see my article: Why is Experiential Therapy More Effective Than Traditional Talk Therapy to Work Through Trauma?).

Top Experiential Therapies to Release Blocked Emotions

• Somatic Experiencing (SE): Developed by Dr. Peter Levine, SE views emotional numbness as trapped survival energy from past trauma. Instead of focusing solely on the narrative story, an SE therapist helps you slow down and track subtle physical sensations like warmth, tingling, or tightness. Through a gentle pacing process called "titration," your nervous system thaws out of its freeze response without becoming overwhelmed (see my article: Somatic Experiencing: A Mind-Body Oriented Therapy).
• Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): Though widely recognized for Bilateral Stimulation (like side-to-side eye movements or using tappers), EMDR is deeply rooted in how the body stores distressing memories. During processing, you focus on the physical feeling of numbness in the body alongside a rhythmic tactile or visual stimulus. This assists the brain in processing stuck emotional information, eventually leading to a somatic discharge—such as crying or a deep sense of physical relief (see my article: EMDR Therapy and the Brain).
• Internal Family Systems (IFS) Parts Work: In IFS, an inability to cry is viewed as an intelligent protective strategy rather than a broken system. This freeze response is respected as a protective "part" shielding you from overwhelming grief or fear. Rather than trying to eliminate the symptom, an IFS therapist uses a process called "unblending" to help you step back from the numbness, access your compassionate Core Self, and safely heal the underlying emotional wound (see my article: IFS Therapy is a Gentle Evidence-Based Therapy For Trauma)
• Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP): AEDP focuses heavily on "undoing aloneness" through an explicitly safe, warm, and collaborative relationship with the therapist. By tracking moment-to-moment somatic cues (such as a tight jaw or shallow breathing), the therapist helps you stay anchored within your "window of tolerance." Sharing the emotional burden allows the defensive numbing to safely drop away, facilitating a healthy emotional discharge (see my article: What is AEDP - Part 1 and Part 2).

The Power of an Integrative, Bottom-Up Approach to Healing

When a trauma specialist integrates modalities like EMDR, IFS, AEDP, and Somatic Experiencing, they are practicing a comprehensive, bottom up approach to healing.

Traditional psychotherapy relies on a "top-down" framework, targeting the logical, thinking brain first. However, trauma, chronic anxiety, and severe emotional stress are primarily stored in lower brain regions (like the amygdala) and the autonomic nervous system—areas that rational thoughts cannot easily reach.

By targeting how trauma is physically held in the nervous system, an integrative experiential approach builds a complete healing plan that simultaneously addresses the cognitive, emotional, relational, and physical layers of your well-being. If you are struggling with unresolved emotional blocks, seeking an experiential trauma therapist can provide the safe, embodied path needed to thaw your system and safely reclaim your emotions.

Take the Next Step Toward Healing

If you are tired of living with a frozen or numbed nervous system, you do not have to navigate the thawing process alone. Releasing deeply held emotional blocks requires a safe, relational environment tailored to your body's unique pacing.

About Josephine Ferraro, LCSW

I offer specialized, integrative "bottom-up" trauma therapy to help you safely access and process stuck emotions. 

My private practice is centrally located in New York City's Greenwich Village/Chelsea neighborhood (10011), providing a confidential and grounding space for somatic healing. In-person and virtual sessions are available. I also offer online therapy.

To learn more about my approach, visit my website at Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

I offer a complimentary 15 minute phone call before setting up an appointment.

Call Me at (917) 742-2624 during standard business hours or email me. 

Let's work together to restore your system’s natural flow.

Mismatched Desire is a Relationship Problem--Not An Individual Problem

This article was updated on September 16, 2026.

Mismatched sexual desire is fundamentally a relational issue—not an individual pathology. Yet, when a desire discrepancy surfaces, a common and destructive dynamic often takes hold: the partner with the higher libido tries to "send" the partner with the lower libido to sex therapy alone. This shifts the entire burden of a shared relationship problem onto a single individual. 

Mismatched Desire is a Relationship Issue

The "Identified Patient"

While sexual shame or anxiety can keep someone from participating in therapy, a primary roadblock is the "identified patient" dynamic. In this scenario, Partner A (higher desire) unintentionally pathologizes Partner B (lower desire), convincing them that they are "broken" and need a therapist to "fix" them.

As a certified sex therapist in New York City, I see this clinical misunderstanding play out constantly in my private practice. Most of the time, the conflict isn't driven by malice, but by a basic misunderstanding of human biology. Partners often fail to recognize that both spontaneous sexual desire and responsive sexual desire are completely normal variations of human intimacy, not clinical defects.

Partner A, the one with the stronger sexual desire, pathologizes Partner B's normal desire so that Partner B feels like they're "broken" and needs to be "fixed". 

Often this pathologizing is unintentional. More often, it's a misunderstanding about how sexual desire works and that there can be either spontaneous or responsive sexual desire which are both normal.

Clinical Vignette

The following clinical vignette is a composite of many different cases:

Janet and Mark

When Janet contacted a sex therapist, she said her husband, Mark, told her she should make an appointment for herself because she didn't want to have sex as often as he did.

The sex therapist told Janet that desire discrepancy (also known as mismatched libido), is a common problem in relationships and it's a relationship problem--not an individual problem---because it's a dynamic between two people.

Janet thought her husband would probably join her after the first appointment, so she saw the therapist on her own the first time.

During the first appointment, the sex therapist told Janet that it's normal and common for two people to have different levels of desire--just like they would have different levels of desire for certain foods and other activities. She told Janet there is no such thing as a "normal level of desire."

After the first appointment, Janet went home and told Mark about what the sex therapist said. He scoffed and told her to see another therapist. So, Janet began therapy with a therapist who had no knowledge or training in sex therapy, but she agreed to see Janet individually.

Janet wanted to please her husband so she was happy to be able to tell him that she would go for therapy and he could stay home. Over time, Janet went to therapy and talked about the problem, but nothing changed. The therapist listened quietly and provided no feedback.

After a few weeks, Janet realized that this therapist was working outside her area of expertise and stopped seeing her.

When she approached her husband again about seeing the sex therapist, he refused. He told her to go see someone else, but whenever Janet called a certified sex therapist, she was told that this is a relationship problem and both people need to be in the therapy.

This went on for a while and Mark was complaining more than ever because Janet didn't want to have sex as often as he did. So, Janet decided to do her own research and she discovered that the first therapist was correct--both she and her husband needed to be in sex therapy together.

After several years passed with Mark being increasingly dissatisfied, he decided to join Janet in seeing the original sex therapist and they began to make progress.

Why Do Some People Refuse to Participate in Couples Therapy For Relationship Problems?

It's always been interesting to me that most people wouldn't tell a medical doctor how to treat their medical issues, but many people insist they know how a therapist should treat relational and sexual problems.

Since a lot of people think that therapy is "just talking", they think they know how it should work. They don't understand that therapy, especially couples sexual therapy, is a specialized treatment that is performed by licensed mental health professionals who have gone for advanced postgraduate training. Also, there are specific interventions that are not about "just talking."

Couples sex therapy is not the only therapy where people tend to designate an "identified patient" as the one who is to "blame" for having a problem. 

Families often scapegoat a certain family member as the one who has all the problems when, in reality, the one who is designated as the scapegoat might be the healthiest one--and the problems in the family are systemic family problems--not the problem of one individual.

Let's look at some of the problems involved in the vignette with Janet and Mark:

The "Identified Patient" Dynamic in More Detail

• Pathologizing Lower Desire: If the issue is desire discrepancy, the partner with lower desire is often incorrectly labeled as the one with the medical or psychological problem. In the vignette above, Mark incorrectly labeled Janet as the problem.

• Ignoring the Loop: Mark saw Janet's lower desire as being an isolated malfunction. So, he completely overlooked how his behavior, communication style and refusal to split chores acted as a sexual brake for Janet.

• Outsourcing the Problem: Mark hoped a professional would "fix" Janet's behavior so their sexual relationship would change to his preferred baseline of sexual activity so he didn't have to make any personal changes. 

Fear and Vulnerability Avoidance
Couples therapy, including couples sex therapy, acts as a mirror and many individuals are very uncomfortable looking at what the mirror reveals about them:

• Fear of Judgment: Mark worried that a sex therapist would criticize his sexual performance, technique or emotional maturity. This kept him out of therapy.

• Shame Around Rejection: For Mark, admitting that his wife doesn't want him sexually as much as he wants her was deeply painful. By pushing Janet into individual therapy, he pretended the issue was an abstract medical problem.

• Emotional Exposure: Mark was conditioned to hide emotional vulnerability. Attending therapy involves discussing deep fears, inadequacies and failures, which can feel incredibly threatening.

Misunderstanding Sex Therapy

There is an incorrect common assumption that sex therapy is only about the physical mechanics of sex rather than about emotional connection:

• The "Instruction Manual" Myth: Mark believed that the sex therapist would provide Janet with tools, exercises or psychological "tricks" to boost her physical arousal, but this isn't how sex therapy works.

• Missing the Emotional Link: Mark failed to recognize that for many women (and many men too), sexual desire is linked to emotional intimacy, safety and mutual respect outside the bedroom.

Control and Power Dynamics
For many people, including Mark, refusing to attend couples sex therapy is a way to maintain control over the narrative of the relationship:

• Protecting an Ego: By remaining outside the therapy sessions, Mark ensured that his habits and contributions to the sexual problems weren't analyzed. He never had to look at that his ways of initiating sex and that what he did sexually with Janet wasn't satisfying to her. No one wants sex that isn't satisfying to them.

• Dictating Terms: By sending Janet to therapy, Mark positioned himself as the "healthy" partner and Janet as the "deficient" partner--the one who had sole responsibility for their sexual happiness.

Moving Forward

Once Mark came to couples sex therapy with Janet, they both benefited from learning how to talk about sex, finding out what they each liked and disliked and understanding how each of their personal histories contributed to their problems.

Conclusion

Sex therapy is for adult individuals and couples.

There are times when individual sex therapy can be beneficial in helping an individual to overcome problems like sexual shame or other personal issues. But when the problem involves a dynamic in the relationship, both people need to attend.

Get Help in Couples Sex Therapy

Although it might feel challenging to join your partner in couples sex therapy, the consequences of remaining outside the sessions and sending your partner for relational issues, like desire discrepancy, is a much more challenging issue to face when the problem continues for months and maybe even years.

Like most problems, the sooner you address them, the less complicated they tend to be to resolve. 

Rather than waiting until the problem becomes worse, get help from a licensed mental health professional who is a certified sex therapist.

Working on your problem together can bring you closer emotionally and sexually so you can have a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, and advanced practitioner specializing in IFS Parts Work, Somatic Experiencing, AEDP, EMDR, and EFT Couples Therapy and Sex Therapy, 

I provide depth-oriented, experiential therapy to help individual adults and couples move past internal blockages into authentic relational alignment.

To learn more about my clinical background, clinical philosophy, and healing approach, please visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

• Office Location: I see clients in-person at my Greenwich Village office (New York, NY 10011) as well as online via secure telehealth.
• Initial Contact: I provide a complimentary 15-minute introductory phone call prior to scheduling an initial appointment.
• Contact Information: You can reach me directly at (917) 742-2624 during standard business hours or email me.

Also See My Articles:

What is Sex Therapy?

What Are Common Issues Discussed in Sex Therapy? 

What Are Common Misconceptions About Sex Therapy?

Spontaneous Desire and Responsive Desire Are Both Normal 

Overcoming Anxiety-Related Sexual Problems 

Understanding Your Sexual Accelerators and Brakes