Dr. Courtney Crouse, Psy.D.

Shadow work is a term used in spiritual and psychological communities to describe the process of identifying unintegrated parts of oneself, examining them, and integrating them back into the self. From a Jungian perspective, shadow work refers to making the unconscious conscious. It involves bringing forward psychological material that has been suppressed, exiled, or otherwise cast out of the self, bringing it into the spotlight, and learning how to reintegrate it. Examples might include resentment, anger, lust, arrogance, jealousy, or shame.

There is something uniquely painful about knowing the person you miss is walking around, living an ordinary life while being completely inaccessible to you. After a breakup, it can be difficult to reconcile that someone you love and care deeply for is no longer part of your life, while somewhere out there, they are continuing to live theirs.

One of the biggest myths about breakups is that moving on should happen quickly and easily. If you have been ghosted or did not receive any closure surrounding the end of a relationship, moving through grief can feel especially difficult because there is no clean ending for your brain to point to. This is where attachment and ambiguous grief often collide, creating a cocktail of longing, rumination, and endless questions about the relationship and the other person.

Many people who experienced emotional neglect in childhood struggle with feeling seen and fully known in adulthood. From the earliest stages of life, children communicate their needs to caregivers through cues such as crying, reaching, protesting, or becoming distressed. During infancy, responding to these cues is essential for survival. Infants are entirely dependent on their caregivers for food, comfort, safety, sleep, and emotional regulation. As children grow, these needs become more complex, but the underlying desire remains the same: When I need you, will you be there?

If you have ever found yourself in a relationship, or potential relationship, that began as a whirlwind romance, where someone seemed incredibly interested in you only to suddenly pull away after a few weeks or months, you may have found yourself wondering, “What happened?” Maybe they stopped responding to texts as quickly, became less affectionate or enthusiastic, or even stopped communicating altogether.

When sex becomes a task to succeed at, desire disappears. A Denver psychologist on performance pressure, shame, and getting play back.

Most of the conversation about emotional unavailability is about other people. How to spot it early, how to avoid dating it, how to leave it. That conversation is useful, but it skips the harder and more useful question: what if some of this is happening on your side of the relationship?

Emotional unavailability is rarely obvious from the inside. That's what makes it worth writing about.

You've seen enough posts on social media to have a good theory about what your attachment style might be. You're anxiously attached. That's why you check your phone eleven times waiting for a reply. That's why you often care more about others than they do about you in relationships. That's why a two-hour silence can rearrange your entire nervous system.

You want to bring up a need, a concern, or something that hurt your feelings. You rehearse it. You listen to podcasts. You read books on how to have difficult conversations. You brace yourself for an argument.

And somehow, by the end of the conversation, you were the one apologizing.

If you've found yourself in a relationship where you feel confused, criticized, and like you can never quite get it right no matter how hard you try, you may be wondering if your partner has narcissistic traits. Or maybe you already know and are trying to figure out your next step. Whether you're still trying to make sense of what's been happening, working up the courage to leave, or on the other side of it trying to heal, the right book can be a lifeline.

The elusive “spark.” That moment when two people’s eyes meet across a crowded room — instant chemistry. Is it love at first sight? Or something else…? As much as I think we would all love to believe that our soulmate is somewhere out there (we just haven’t made eye contact with them yet), the reality is a little less enticing. That sensation of instant chemistry or the “spark” can be misleading and is not the best indicator to use when deciding whether to continue seeing someone. This idea of an instant, electrifying connection has seeped into our collective understanding of what love should feel like. But is the “spark” really the best indicator of a potential lifelong partner? Or is it just a romanticized myth that can lead us astray?