Being anaffective: causes and therapy to be undertaken
We often indulge in hasty judgments about people: "It's too cold", "it's too closed", "it always stays on its own". Most of the time, however, we forget that behind some attitudes there can also be serious disturbances that should not be underestimated.
Being anaffective more than a disorder is a symptom that acts as an alarm bell for psychological situations that are out of the ordinary and that involve personal relationships.
An anaffective person is sometimes also affected by philophobia, or the fear of love. Watch this video to find out more.
Meaning of anaffective
Aneffective means the inability to feel affection for another person, or more generally to feel emotions. It is a real symptom related to some personality disorders, such as mental anorexia or pathological stress.
In some cases it is a momentary state that resolves spontaneously, due to particular stressful conditions. In other cases, however, the anaffective individual has always been so and continually suffers from moments of discomfort and suffering, sometimes resulting in difficult management.
In essence, anaffective people are absolutely unable to forge any kind of bond that is friendship or love and are also impassive in the face of affection or love that is shown to them.
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Anffectivity: what is the cause?
One of the main causes is to be found in traumas that occurred as children or during pre-adolescence. From that moment on, subjects may have a distorted view of reality that leads to consequences such as the inability to feel emotions or the inability to express feelings that remain repressed.
When the human mind is prey to these situations, it is able to create false beliefs such as that of not deserving affection and not having to give it. What follows is that the anaffective individual tends to detach himself from the world around him, forgetting to exist and behaving in all respects like an automaton.
Those who are anaffective often also suffer from body rigidity: hugs, kisses, caresses and any type of physical contact are absolutely avoided to counteract the strong discomfort and embarrassment that are created for those suffering from this disorder.
To complete the picture of the situation, it should be emphasized that one of the main reasons that leads the ineffective to be so detached is the fear of feeling emotions and letting oneself go to the affections that are to be avoided at all costs. Any interpersonal relationship situation is seen as a threat and a completely defensive attitude follows. In short, in order not to suffer, anaffective people deprive themselves of affections.
To give a concrete example, let's think about the end of an important love: we feel torn and we are sure that we will no longer be able to feel love for another person.In this case it is an absolutely temporary situation that has happened to everyone at least once in their life and disappears completely when we begin to regain confidence in ourselves and find ourselves loving again.
If in the past, loving was painful and frustrating for an individual, he will more or less consciously begin to consider it a behavior to be avoided and avoided; in this way and over time, it will create an increasingly evident difficulty in managing any type of relationship that involves a certain intimacy.
Sometimes things go smoothly and resolve themselves, other times it is necessary to rely on specialists before the state of anaffectivity involves other spheres of our daily life with disastrous consequences.
Ineffectiveness affects both men and women
Anaffective people are both men and women, this symptom can affect both sexes indifferently who will find themselves in the tragic situation of not wanting to feel affection for fear of being hurt. If on the one hand the man becomes anaffective also because he is called to defend his role as a strong and independent person who does not let himself be overwhelmed by emotions, the woman on the other hand would seem more accustomed to dealing with emotions and feelings, also for the innate maternal instinct.
More than not having feelings, anaffective people will not want to have them, assuming what are real narcissistic attitudes, such as:
- Exaggerated attention to oneself
- Inability to accept criticism or self-mockery
- Not being able to play the joke
It is an unconscious precaution and represents one of the ways to defend oneself from painful experiences lived during childhood and beyond. Coldness is generated by traumatic situations of non-love and abandonment with emotionally serious consequences.
The individual, in order not to experience suffering once again, gets on the defensive and detaches himself totally: every time he is touched in some way by love, by affections, by any positive sentimental form, the anguish of abandonment prevails and unknowingly defends himself with an invisible shield of coldness.
How to deal with an anaffective
The aneffective is characterized by a real stop to emotions and feelings which is usually called an affective block. How do you approach an anaffective person? The first thing to consider is that in most cases it is difficult to notice that you are dealing with one of them.
If a long relationship is established, then it will probably be easier to realize it because a series of mechanisms that you want or do not want will be triggered, will unmask the disorder.
Interacting with an anaffective person is not easy: those who suffer from anaffectivity, in fact, lack empathy and therefore to get in tune with others, rather they try in every way to hide behind a wall made of silence and rationality. Logical reasoning, in fact, is the only sensible thing according to non-affective subjects and the only way to go during which there must be no obstacle made by feelings or emotions.
If you are trying to enter into a love affair with an unaffective (but you are still unaware of it) know that it is normal to feel somewhat disoriented. There will be no certainty about the feelings, each small positive step will be followed by another hundred negative ones and consequently we will continually question ourselves. Maybe the person really feels an interest in the partner, it could be that he is also in love, but he will never show it, at the cost of losing everything and being further frustrated.
Can an affectivity be diagnosed?
As we said earlier, anaffectivity often arises from childhood trauma, but it is in adulthood that it manifests itself, that is precisely when events occur that irremediably involve emotions and the affective sphere: friends of the heart, first love, engagement , marriage, motherhood.
In anaffective people, since the personal sphere is practically non-existent, all attention and concentration shifts to the professional sphere. Work is the fulcrum of the life of the private at the expense of moments of leisure, outings with friends, hobbies and entertainment in general.
What are the other alarm bells for those suffering from anaffectivity?
- Be influenced by the appreciation of others
- Unrestrained interest in aesthetic and image-related aspects
- Inability to enjoy life
- Attempts to escape from memories
- Absolute coolness in any kind of situation
- Emotional detachment and defensive attitude
- Shun any romantic relationship
- Constant anguish of abandonment
- Question the feelings of others
- Emotional instability and anxiety
- Perennial inner emptiness
The best therapy
There is no real therapy to "heal" from an ineffectiveness, the best path to take is psychotherapy.
Sometimes it can happen that a person who has already suffered the damage of emotional deficiencies, in turn, transmits it to those close to him. Therefore, the main thing to do is to break the chain as soon as possible.
It should also be emphasized that anaffective individuals almost always do not know they are and it is difficult for them to decide to start a psychotherapy course. With the right people close by (family and friends in the first place), however, it is possible to reach this awareness and completely resolve the disorder.
Curiosities on the subject
The status of anaffective is much more common than one might think and is often the protagonist of films, TV series and books. A few examples? Massimo Gramellini's book "Make beautiful dreams" which then became a film directed by Marco Bellocchio and starring Valerio Mastandrea: he was orphaned by his mother as a child, growing up he collides with the difficulty of loving and finding a woman who is close to him.
Even the TV series "The Big Bang Theory" he tried to tell the phenomenon, exploring in an ironic way the life of an anaffective person and all the daily difficulties that follow.
Finally, we also want to mention the novel "Bel Ami" by Guy de Maupassant with a seductive but anaffective protagonist.
