Dr. Guy Winch

Joining me today is my friend, psychologist, Dr. Guy Winch, who has spent years studying something we all experience but rarely treat properly, emotional pain.

He's the author of the book, Emotional First Aid, and his TED Talk on the subject has been viewed by millions of people around the world.

His work focuses on the everyday emotional injuries people experience, things like rejection, loneliness, failure, and heartbreak, and why we tend to ignore those wounds until they start affecting our mental health, our relationships, and sometimes even lead to destructive coping behaviors.

Guy, it's great to have you with us.

Guy, you talk about emotional first aid, treating rejection, failure, and loneliness before they fester.

In my world, untreated emotional pain is one of the main drivers of addiction.

How often do you think addiction is really just untreated emotional injury?

Yeah, for sure.

You've talked about, actually you've said that people ignore emotional wounds the way they used to ignore infections before antibiotics.

In addiction treatment, we see the end result of that every day.

What's the earliest moment someone should intervene with emotional first aid so that it doesn't turn into something destructive?

You're so right-sized about everything.

I just can't stop smiling.

I'm so happy to have you here.

I don't have the words.

Okay.

What's the emotional injury you see most often that people pretend doesn't matter but actually changes the entire direction of their life?

You know, that was a surprising answer to me.

I did not see that coming.

And the reason I didn't see it coming was because of COVID.