psychic distance

American  

Or psychical distance

noun

1. the degree of emotional detachment maintained toward a person, group of people, event, etc.

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Example Sentences

The fees put some psychic distance between the products and the extra money, making the charges seem akin to a sales tax—totally out of a business owner’s control.

From Slate • May 2, 2025

I get the clear sense that she was raised to allow people in but also keeps a safe psychic distance, a spiritual boundary that, when respected, falls away.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 29, 2025

Yet I think we internalized enough of that wide-open space to know the need for psychic distance in our marriage.

From New York Times • May 1, 2020

“God’s Caravan” is very much thinking through close third-person, especially from the perspective of a child who has no psychic distance from the action.

From The New Yorker • Oct. 28, 2019

Were girls and women somehow taught to keep a psychic distance from their physical selves?

From The Guardian • Jul. 5, 2013