Alexithymia: the disorder that makes subjects unable to understand emotions
It is not always easy to understand the emotions one feels: sometimes everyone gets confused but those who suffer from alexithymia are just unable to do so. By continuing to read this article, you will discover how to recognize a person with alexithymia and which therapies can help those who suffer from it. Watch this video and discover the power of emotions: even tears can be really beneficial and help you focus. your feelings!
Alexithymia: where does this word come from and what it indicates
The word Alexithymia indicates a difficulty in recognizing, in expressing and also simply in distinguishing the different emotions and bodily sensations. This word comes from the Greek and that is to "lack", lexis "Word" e thymos "Emotion", we can translate alexithymia with the lack of words to express one's emotional state.
Before the 1950s there was no mention of alexithymia. From this date in fact the term is used for
describe people with psychosomatic illnesses. At the base there was the theory that those who could not express their emotions with words gave vent to their inner part through external diseases.
That is, he showed his emotional suffering through physical suffering. Today, however, alexithymia is one of the psychological aspects on which greater attention is paid in the medical field. Currently alexithymia
it has taken on an even broader and more complex meaning. It is recognized as a construct transnosographic, that is, associated with the more general concept of emotional dysregulation. Today, therefore, alexithymia is considered to all intents and purposes an emotional deficit. Those who suffer from it, the alexithymic individual, do not regulate their interiority. This psychological condition has been associated in many medical studies with even serious medical diseases, such as tumors, or even chronic pain syndrome, or other disorders affecting the gastrointestinal system. In some cases, neighborhoods and overlaps between alexithymia and autistic or even eating disorders, as well as there are links between the inability to tell and describe emotions and substance abuse or what is defined as post-traumatic stress disorder. According to contemporary scientific theories alexithymia is to be consider yourself a real personality trait: about 10% of the world population suffers from it.
Alexithymia: what happens to the body from a physiological and functional point of view
Alexithymic individuals show reduced affective participation. This is noticeable both in the inability to frequently change facial expression and in emotional language. Alexithymics not only cannot change their facial expressions or describe what they are feeling, but they also cannot decipher other people's expressions or understand their own. moods. Another characteristic of those with alexithymia is a lower physiological reactivity, particularly in times of stress. We could understand, on a neurobiological level, alexithymia considering that in individuals who suffer from it, some areas of the brain are "inactive". Of course we are talking about those brain areas dedicated to the understanding of emotions and therefore the amygdala that evaluates all the emotional stimuli that the body receives, the areas of the brain dedicated to the ability to feel empathy, the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, that part that allows the " man to make a decision and finally the insula, the brain area that allows us to recognize emotions.
See also: The most beautiful phrases about happiness
Alexithymia: symptoms, psychological and behavioral characteristics of alexithymic individuals
Those who have alexithymia have an undoubted alteration of the cognitive sphere. This means that they have a practical, outward-oriented thought and never a moment of reflection or introspection. Alexithymic subjects are always projected outside themselves and never inside themselves . When you talk to a subject who has alexithymia, he will never transmit emotional intensity, he does not communicate his fears or desires. All feelings are excluded from dialogue: we are limited to speaking in a cold and objective way. A good way to tell if you are dealing with an alexithymic is to pay attention to what he says and how he speaks. Usually the alexithymic individual abounds in details but speaks flatly: there is no room in what he says for fantasy or imagination.
Another symptom that represents an alarm bell is given by hypochondria. Very often people with alexithymia are unable to describe moods and bodily sensations and often tend to somatize this malaise or to express it through hypochondria or depression. Another clue is given by a decidedly altered "interaction with the external environment. Clearly the subject with alexithymia has difficulty in relating, not being able to understand who he is in front of, the allesithymics in pairs are often frustrated and fail." to understand the needs and requests of the partner. A frequent symptom are mood swings, for example, which derive from the frustration of not being able to decipher what is happening around them.
Being the companion or the companion of an alexithymic individual is difficult: the absence of emotional exchanges complicates the couple's relationship and quarrels could thus become really on the agenda.
To fully understand an alexithymic imagines a person who lives seeing emotions wrapped in fog: it is as if everything were under a glass bell and he is unable to decipher the emotions, nor naturally to experience them in a normal way. Often these individuals are posturally rigid and also reflect in their body and way of walking their inability to express facial emotions. This is like a barrier between them and the world: a sort of mask that affects not only the face but the whole body that prevents it from having real contact with its surroundings.
Alexithymia: the most suitable care and treatments for this problem
It is not possible to imagine a life in which there is total absence of emotion. Emotions are necessary for the human and social interaction of each individual and learning to recognize them is also an extraordinary advantage. Alexithymia can be cured through a new emotional re-education of the person who learns again to acquire data from what he experiences and deduces emotions. The treatment path of alexithymia is a long treatment alongside a psychotherapist in presence or even online that makes the patient get used to feeling feelings again and above all gives the alexithymic the possibility to understand what feelings he is feeling in order to enter in relation with the outside world and with the people who are close to it. What the alexithymic is experiencing is a new emotional literacy.
The psychotherapeutic path to regain possession of one's feelings and emotions is not simple but is often effective in giving a new life opportunity to alexithymic people.
If you think you are alexithymic or if you know a person who has difficulty communicating and understanding their emotions and moods, seek the help of a professional, a psychologist or an experienced psychotherapist who can provide support and skills and direct the patient towards a better and more satisfying life, full of emotions!
