Alexithymia is a condition in which a person stops hearing his own body. Sometimes people experience enormous physical pain, but seem to reject it, preferring not to notice what is happening to them. Unconsciously, there is a fencing off from the sphere of feelings, recognizing them as unnecessary and insignificant. The person essentially discards what causes him pain, which contributes to the strengthening of the negative reaction. The problem of alexithymia has not yet been studied well, but is of great interest. It is clear that behind such behavior there is significant psychological trauma.
What is alexithymia?
Mental health professionals do not consider it a disorder, although it can occur along with some mental illnesses.
Peter Sifneos, a psychiatrist and professor emeritus of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, first described alexithymia in the early 1970s. This word comes from the Greek: "A" means absence, "lexis" means word, and "thymos" means emotion. In general, alexithymia is translated as a lack of words for emotions.
People with alexithymia have trouble introspecting and monitoring their own mental and emotional processes.
Alexithymia also makes it difficult to identify and respond to other people's emotions. These problems can lead to difficulties in social settings and interpersonal relationships.
Pedagogical
It develops if a person did not acquire the proper vocabulary in childhood. As the child grows up, he experiences certain emotions, and with normal development, correlates them with the right words (emotive vocabulary). Then he gains experience from books, movies, etc. Naturally, if parents either themselves suffer from alexithymia, or for some reason do not pay due attention to this aspect of development, the person also experiences difficulty expressing feelings.
Risk factors for this form of disorder in children include:
- education in socially disadvantaged families;
- overprotection on the part of one of the parents (usually the mother), when all areas of the child’s life are controlled, regardless of his age, a clear program for his life is drawn up;
- pedagogical stereotypes, when coldness and restraint are welcomed in the family;
- peculiarities of gender education, a striking example of which is the attitude “men don’t cry”, “don’t be nagging”, etc., the categorical imposition of thoughts that a boy should be restrained, unperturbed, which subsequently often “results” in alexithymia.
Alexithymia - signs
- difficulty identifying feelings and emotions;
- problems distinguishing between emotions and bodily sensations;
- limited ability to convey feelings;
- difficulty recognizing and responding to other people's emotions, including tone of voice and facial expressions;
- lack of fantasy and imagination;
- a logical and rigid thinking style that does not take emotions into account;
- people with alexithymia are less altruistic than other people;
- lack a sense of humor;
- not satisfied with life.
Alexithymia as a psychological problem
The disorder occurs in 5–25% of relatively healthy people (we are talking about the absence of mental illness). This variation in epidemiological data is explained by differences in diagnostic methods.
Any psychology manual has a huge section devoted to feelings and experiences. But in practice, the simple question “How do you feel” often causes difficulty and confusion in the patient, and the doctor in most cases hears the standard answer “I don’t know.” Many psychotherapists interpret this phrase as resistance and reluctance to think, and only qualified, practicing specialists (and at the Leto clinic doctors have extensive experience working with patients with a similar problem) can recognize behind these words a serious and painful emotional disorder for a person.
Alexithymia - causes
Experts do not know the exact cause of alexithymia. Some studies suggest that this may be the result of the following conditions:
- Genetics
. Twin studies suggest that there is a genetic component to alexithymia. People are more likely to have alexithymia if a close relative also has the condition. - Environmental factors
. The same twin study also suggests that environmental factors play a role in alexithymia. Examples of environmental factors include childhood trauma, the presence of a physical or mental health condition, or socioeconomic factors. - Brain injury
. Research shows that people with damage to an area of the brain known as the anterior insula have an increased risk of developing alexithymia.
Alexithymia - diagnosis
Alexithymia is not a mental health disorder, so doctors and mental health professionals cannot formally diagnose the condition. However, there are questionnaires and scales that are used to identify signs of alexithymia.
These include:
Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS)
, which evaluates:
- a person's ability to identify feelings and separate them from physical sensations;
- the ability to convey feelings to other people;
- a tendency to exhibit externally oriented thinking (rather than an introspective thinking style);
The Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire (BVAQ)
, which consists of 40 items in the following five subscales:
- emotions;
- fantasies;
- identification;
- analysis;
- verbalization.
Peculiarities
Signs of alexithymia should not be ignored. They can lead to aggravation of the situation. Sometimes a person is so lost that he completely ceases to understand what is happening to him. This threatens with additional problems that are not so easy to solve. Lack of strength and experience can lead to a state of inevitable confusion. It is better to know some features of alexithymia in advance.
Separating feelings from logic
A person stops paying attention to his own feelings. At some point, it becomes easier for him to live without putting his soul into anything and without trying to comprehend what is happening. In other words, the individual lives with his head, with logical conclusions. It is useless to convince him that it is possible to build relationships differently and come to positive changes. There is an unconscious switching off of feelings so as not to experience additional disappointments. Emotional detachment and inability to experience are dictated by the inability to immerse oneself in painful memories. The personality was once unable to cope with emotions, so now it prefers to forget the past and keep everything under constant control.
Feeling empty
Alexithymia causes similar sensations as when you lose something significant and valuable. Gradually, a feeling of ringing emptiness is formed, which is deafening in its bottomlessness. However, this emptiness does not create visible discomfort; it becomes comfortable, to some extent lulling. A person justifies himself by the fact that he was treated unkindly in the past, therefore, there is every reason for inaction. Few people realize that the loss of social connections and relationships contributes to the accumulation of internal anxiety and dissatisfaction.
Blaming others
Accumulated negative emotions seek a way out, no matter how persistently they try to hide them. Sometimes the argument with oneself reaches truly crushing proportions. The individual justifies his own inaction by the fact that those around him will still not notice that any efforts were made on his part. Active accusations of others begin. This allows you to get rid of some of the negative aspects by releasing negative feelings. Only such a person is unlikely to prefer to swear out loud with someone. Most likely, secret remarks, spoken in a low voice or mentally, will be used.
Link to mental illness
Alexithymia commonly occurs in people with certain mental disorders, including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Depression
Some studies indicate that the clinical features of depression depend to some extent on the presence of alexithymia. Individuals with comorbid depressive disorders and alexithymia have more severe symptoms of depression, psychosis, and phobias.
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Several small studies suggest that alexithymia is more common in people with PTSD. A 1997 study that compared Holocaust survivors with and without PTSD found that people with PTSD had higher scores on tests of alexithymia than those without PTSD.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
A 2013 study of 50 children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) notes a link between alexithymia and hyperactivity and impulsivity.
Eating disorder
A 2021 review shows that people with an eating disorder are unable to identify and describe their emotions. Other studies have linked alexithymia to poorer treatment outcomes for eating disorders.
Scientists have also linked alexithymia to other conditions, including:
- suicidality;
- schizophrenia;
- neurodegenerative diseases.
Treatment
Therapeutic tactics for correcting the manifestations of alexithymia practically do not differ depending on the severity of this character accentuation, however, in practical psychology it has been noted that the treatment of primary forms of alexithymia is much less amenable to correction, and the results are not as effective in comparison with therapy in patients with a secondary form alexithymia. Most likely, these results are associated with the peculiarities of the functioning of the parts of the central nervous system responsible for the emotional component, imagination and interpretation of feelings.
In most cases, treatment tactics for identifying personality traits characteristic of alexithymia are non-drug interventions, for example, the use of course psychotherapy. At the moment, medication treatment for this accentuation has not been developed, and accordingly, the effectiveness of this method has not been proven.
The main goal of the psychotherapeutic approach for people suffering from manifestations of alexithymia is the gradual formation of awareness of the spectrum of emotional sensations. This requires the systematic use of special exercises that the psychotherapist conducts in his sessions. The main link in the formation of a motivational disposition to compensate for the deficit of feelings is the awareness that life without emotions deprives a person with alexithymia of a wide range of sensations and life experiences.
Subject to the desire of the person and the systematic use of specialized exercises included in the course of psychotherapy, it is possible to achieve lasting correction of the manifestations of alexithymia and even full adaptation of the person in ordinary society.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=viqHjZkemgE
conclusions
Alexithymia is the inability to identify and describe emotions. People with alexithymia have difficulty recognizing their own emotions and also have difficulty recognizing and responding to the emotions of others.
There is no formal diagnosis for alexithymia, although there are several scales that can help identify signs of alexithymia.
Because it is not a disorder, health care providers do not currently prescribe treatment for alexithymia. However, if the condition co-occurs with another disorder, such as depression or PTSD, people may seek treatment for these problems to avoid worsening symptoms or complications.
Related article: ADHD and schizophrenia: similarities and differences.
“I can be offended to the point of tears if they say ‘stupid’ to me.”
Living with alexithymia is difficult, but not impossible. Here is what respondent Anton, 30 years old, said in an interview with Afisha Daily:
“Until recently, I did not know about such a problem as alexithymia, but I began to notice that I did not understand my emotions and feelings in my youth. I couldn’t understand how to react to the actions of classmates and friends: when to laugh, get angry and upset. I still can’t distinguish a joke from an insult if they are not obvious. For example, I can be offended to the point of tears if someone says “fool” to me in a friendly way, and I can laugh when I hear swear words addressed to me. Trying to socialize, I imitated other people, but it seemed awkward and I didn’t grasp the norm. I was bullied at school, but I didn’t know how to react: I was silent when insulted, but for slight irony I could get into a fight, then I felt ashamed and apologized.”
