Why Men Can't Access Their Feelings — And What It's Doing to Your Relationship | ft. Dr. Gloria Vanderhorst

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Here's something nobody told you: boys come into the world with a broader range of emotional expression than girls do. And then we spend the next 18 years systematically shutting it down.

In this episode of Between the Sheets with Dr. Z, Dr. Stephanie Zwonitzer, DNP sits down with Dr. Gloria Vanderhorst — psychotherapist with over 50 years of experience and author of Read, Reflect, Respond: The Three Rs of Growth and Change — for a conversation that reframes everything you thought you knew about men and emotions. Dr. Vanderhorst has spent decades working with boys from preschool through adulthood and has watched the same pattern play out: a child with a full emotional range gets shamed, shut down, and trained out of vulnerability. Then he grows up, gets married, and his partner wonders why he won't open up.

The answer isn't that he can't. It's that we taught him not to.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• Why boys are born more emotionally expressive than girls — and what happens to that capacity over time
• How shame and social conditioning box away emotions without erasing them — and why that means it's never too late
• The free feelings word list Dr. Vanderhorst swears by — and exactly where to put it in your house so it actually gets used
• Why women say they want emotionally available men, then unconsciously shut them down when they try
• The car, the dark room, and the bedtime cuddle — why side-by-side conversations unlock what face-to-face conversations can't
• How unexpressed emotion ends up stored in the body as physical pain and illness
• Why men's deepest friendships often involve zero emotional vulnerability — and what that costs them
• The connection between emotional intelligence and problem-solving that most people never make
• When to stop trying to fix it yourself and get outside help — and why earlier is always better

Dr. Vanderhorst's free feelings word list and blog resources are available at drvandherhorst.com. Her book Read, Reflect, Respond is available on Amazon and at bookstores everywhere.

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Episode is sponsored by Boston Scientific and EDCure. For more information click here:
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