EB Psychotherapy Blog

Have you ever opened your phone just for a second and then suddenly 30 minutes are gone? You're left trying to figure out what just happened.

That sense of losing time isn't laziness or a lack of discipline. It's a state of digital dissociation. Your nervous system enters in a trance that feels at least temporarily safer than being fully present. That loop and how it can literally remap your nervous system is what we will explore today.

At the beginning of a relationship, it is natural to enjoy attention, affection, and excitement. Feeling chosen, admired, and deeply connected can be energizing. Healthy new relationships often include enthusiasm and a desire to spend time together. But sometimes what appears to be romance is actually a form of emotional manipulation known as love bombing.

Love bombing occurs when someone overwhelms another person with excessive affection, praise, gifts, communication, or promises in order to gain trust and emotional dependence quickly.

Many of us move through life with an invisible filter that simplifies the world into extremes. Things are good or bad. Other people are trustworthy or disappointing. We have or don't have that trait we really want. We failed or we did well. This kind of thinking—often called black-and-white or all-or-nothing thinking—can feel clarifying in the moment. It offers certainty, quick conclusions, and a sense of control. 

Anxiety can be an overwhelming internal experience—racing thoughts, physical tension, persistent worry—but when it shows up in a romantic relationship, it often takes on an additional layer of complexity. Suddenly, the internal becomes interpersonal. Thoughts like “Do they really love me?”, “What if they leave?”, or “Did I do something wrong?” can begin to shape communication patterns, emotional closeness, and even the overall stability of the relationship.

It is not uncommon for a client to sit across from a therapist and say, “I’m afraid of dying.” In therapeutic spaces, especially those informed by existential psychology, this statement is rarely taken at face value. The meaning beneath it is often more nuanced. Existential psychology suggests that while some individuals do indeed fear the unknown aspects of death—the mystery of what happens after, or the physical process of dying—many who bring up this fear in therapy are expressing something deeper. More often than not, the fear of death is actually a fear of not having fully lived.

Many of us move through life on autopilot more often than we realize. We respond to stress in familiar ways, repeat relational patterns that feel both frustrating and strangely predictable, and make choices that align more with habit than intention. These “default ways of being” are shaped by our histories, environments, relationships, and the adaptive strategies we developed to survive and make sense of the world. At one point, these patterns likely served a purpose, and probably still do.

We speak a lot in our blogs about the implications of people relying on AI for mental health support; there are many benefits to this and nothing wrong with this. When there is no one or no where left for someone to turn, and they need insight, the ability to utilize an intelligent machine based on human wisdom to normalize their feelings, gain feedback, organize thoughts, and provide empathy is a middle ground some people need. They are not ready to rely on another human, and this way, they are not left entirely isolated and unable to reflect or receive support.

You might be doing okay, getting by; you're really fulfilled in your life. Each human being carries something deep within us that encourages us to seek connection, and it is built in to ensure our survival. We have a desire for socialization and belonging. Sometimes, this very natural need is not met the way we might be truly desiring. So we maintain our livelihoods with a small, quiet ache at the center of our being. It might be saying: "No one really sees me." Or: "I don't matter here." 

Overall, our species is changing — humanity and the essence of robotics and advanced technology will no longer be entirely separable. The effects of this change nature and the way Earth functions as a whole. That is evolution, and really, it's nothing quite new. Sometimes evolution can be scary when you see it coming. We are in a transitional era. But when it comes to mass change, there is nothing unpredictable about it— which is why the veil on thinking about AI can’t be so entirely evil and dystopian.

For many people, dating and relationships can be some of the most emotionally intense parts of someone's life. They can bring joy, excitement, intimacy, connection, and meaning — but they can also bring anxiety, confusion, rejection, heartbreak, insecurity, and grief. People can end up in situations called "trauma bonds" and then experience, negatively or positively, transformative amounts of grief. They replay deep seeded and hard wired attachment patterns out into their present day relationships. This causes extreme emotionality.