Emotional Avoidance & Intimacy · Online, in English

The same focus that saved you is the same thing keeping you at a distance from the people you love

Professional psychological support in English, from someone who thinks the way you do. A space to understand why staying busy and capable feels so much safer than staying close — without translating yourself first.

100% Online
Confidential
Systemic Approach

When capable turns into far away

Emotional avoidance isn't coldness. It's a skill that learned to protect you, and never learned when to stand down.

You're not cold, and you're not failing as a partner or as a parent. You have a real gift for focus, follow-through, and staying steady under pressure — it has carried you through things that would have broken plenty of people. The problem is that same gift is now running in the one place where what's needed is the opposite: to sit still, to feel, to be present with nothing in front of you to fix.

For a lot of people who built a life moving between Spanish and English, that habit started early — the one who translated for the family, the one who couldn't afford to fall apart, the one who learned that being needed was safer than needing someone back. Your body got very good at turning feeling into doing. So when someone you love asks you to just be there, with no task in front of you, it can feel like being asked to do something no one ever taught you how to do.

This isn't a character flaw. It's a skill that became a hiding place — the same wiring, aimed in the wrong direction. Therapy doesn't ask you to stop being capable. It helps you find where that focus still serves you, and where it's quietly keeping the people you love at arm's length.

Ricardo De Castro King — Clinical Psychologist

Who's with you

I'm Ricardo, and you won't be alone in this

I'm a clinical psychologist with more than 15 years working with people whose default is self-sufficiency, trained in systemic family therapy. I'm Colombian, based in Barranquilla, and I see clients online. But before any title, I'm someone who understands what it's like to hold two languages and two worlds at once — and to have learned early that being the strong one meant not asking for much back. Many of the people I work with in English think in Spanish first — they migrated, or grew up shuttling between countries, or had to become the responsible one in a language nobody taught them for that job. You don't have to explain that part to me first.

Closeness is easier to practice with someone next to you. If this feels like the moment, let's take the first step together — at your pace, no pressure.

Master's in Systemic Family Therapy

Universidad Simón Bolívar

Clinical Psychologist

15+ years of clinical experience

University Professor

16 years of university teaching

Systemic-Relational Approach

Focused on your relationships, not just symptoms

Licensed Psychologist · Professional License 106127 (COLPSIC, Colombia)

Ricardo is licensed as a psychologist in Colombia (Professional License 106127) and works with international clients in private practice. He does not prescribe medication. Rules on cross-border online therapy vary by country and by state, so it's worth checking what applies where you live — and this never replaces local emergency care.

Book a Session With Me

My approach

This is how I work with emotional avoidance in therapy

I work from a systemic-relational approach: I don't treat distance as a character flaw to correct, but as a pattern shaped by your story, your relationships, and what you learned would keep you safe.

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Honoring the strength first

We start by naming what your focus and self-reliance have actually done for you — the responsibilities you carried, the pressure you handled when no one else could. That strength doesn't get pathologized here; it gets understood.

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Naming the cost, without blame

Then we look, gently, at what that same strength costs the people close to you — and what it costs you. Not to shame you into changing, but so the pattern stops running on autopilot.

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Practicing presence, not performance

Between sessions, we build small, concrete exercises — like fifteen minutes with no phone and no task list, simply being with someone you love, without trying to fix or solve anything. Just noticing what it's like to stay.

How we start

A clear first step, no pressure

1

You book your assessment session

Message me on WhatsApp or leave your details in the form. We'll set up a first 60-minute video-call session, at a reduced rate (50% off).

2

We get to know your situation

In that first session I listen to your story and how staying distant — or staying busy instead of close — shows up in your relationships. No rushed diagnoses, no jargon — just understanding, together, what you need.

3

We shape the process together

You decide with real information, not blindly. If it feels right for you, we agree on a process built around you. If not, I'll still point you toward what you need.

You have a remarkable capacity to focus... and that's exactly what keeps you so far from your partner — or your people.

— Ricardo De Castro King · Psychologist

Your first step

Start with an assessment session

A first session to meet each other and shape your process. Reduced rate, so you decide with real information, not out of obligation.

US$25US$49.9950%

60 minutes · Video call · 100% confidential

Book My Assessment Session

Want to explore first?

Want to understand this pattern better?

If you want to learn more while you decide, you can start here. MomentoVital is my space with free resources — readings, tests, and guided exercises, in English — to support you starting today.

Explore free resources

This will take you to MomentoVital, my space for open resources.

Also in therapy

Other processes I can walk with you through

Prefer to talk first?

Message me and I'll answer personally

If you're not ready to book and would rather tell me a bit first, message me on WhatsApp or leave your details below. I answer personally within 24 hours, no obligation.

WhatsApp Directly

📍 Online · Barranquilla, Colombia

🕑 Mon-Fri 8am - 7pm · Sat 9am - 1pm (Colombia time)

I answer within 24 hours · Your information is 100% confidential.

If you're in emotional crisis or having thoughts of harming yourself, please seek help right away: in Colombia, call Line 106, or in the US call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), or reach your local mental health line. You are not alone, and help is available right now.

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