Emotionally Confused: What is Alexithymia?

Alexithymia is a very difficult psychological disease, both in terms of diagnosis and treatment, which is characterized by the inability to express one’s emotional state in words, gestures, and facial expressions. It is believed that this phenomenon is caused by the fact that a person cannot connect what is happening with previously experienced experience, and his feelings with certain words. However, such a disorder does not mean insensitivity in general. Experiences are suppressed and, having no way out, can transform into various psychosomatic diseases that do not respond to standard treatment protocols, because their cause is not directly related to organic disorders.

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.

Associated problems with alexithymia

Complications with alexithymia are very diverse. First of all, we are talking about the improper production of hormones responsible for emotions and psychosomatic diseases. These include various manifestations of allergies, gastrointestinal problems, atherosclerosis, migraines and a whole list of diseases.

Often with alexithymia, a person begins to experience problems with excess weight. Many people with this disorder become addicted to alcohol or drugs, which can easily develop into a severe addiction.

Due to the inability to understand the feelings of other people, problems of a social nature often arise: conflicts, problems at work and in personal life.

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.

How does alexithymia affect the body?

When emotions are not processed, the stressful state becomes persistent and affects various systems of the body.

Muscle work

Fear, anxiety, panic, anger, excitement and other reactions that are biologically aimed at performing some action (flight, attack, work, etc.) encourage certain muscle groups to tense.

If this tension does not find a motor release (after all, a person who does not know about his fear does not run anywhere), then the tension in the muscles becomes constant and causes skeletal deformations and dysfunction of internal organs (for example, constantly tense abdominal muscles can cause digestive disorders) .

Hormone production

During times of stress (even when we don’t know that it is stress) and strong experiences (fear, pain, melancholy, love, anger, despair and any others), certain hormones are produced that should mobilize the body and help cope with the stressful situation.

For example, with fear, the production of adrenaline, norepinephrine and cortisol increases - stress hormones that increase heart rate, increase body temperature, cause a rush of blood to the muscles, reduce digestive functions, inhibit thinking and inhibit the sleep-wake cycle - that is, deprive the body of the opportunity to rest and recover .

Mental functions

Alexithymia is often accompanied by mental disorders:

1. Bulimia or anorexia, in which the food function replaces the emotional function of a person.
2. Depression, in which an influx of unconscious feelings plunges a person into a state of apathy and depression.
3. An anxiety disorder in which internal conflicts are projected outward and take the form of an unclear external threat.
4. Obsessive-compulsive disorder, in which rituals and obsessive actions become the center of mental life.
5. Chemical and other addictions, in which the functions of emotional regulation are delegated to a substance or other object of addiction.

Treatment of psychosomatic diseases in patients with alexithymia is most effective in a comprehensive manner

Along with drug treatment of somatic symptoms, it is important to work psychologically

Gradually learning to recognize his own emotional reactions, the patient acquires tools for processing and regulating feelings. As a result, not only awareness increases, but also the manifestations of psychosomatic symptoms are significantly reduced.

"My desires". Drawing of a person with alexithymia

In the process of psychotherapy, psychosomatic patients move from perceiving a symptom as a bodily enemy to understanding pain and illness as a signal that something important is happening inside. With a favorable prognosis, this “important” inside can begin to be recognized and called as emotions, and the person will have space to process feelings, which will have a positive effect on physical well-being

Psychological

There are two forms of psychological alexithymia:

• Psychotraumatic. It is a consequence of severe psychological trauma, when emotions are blocked at a subconscious level due to their very high intensity. Sometimes alexithymia occurs against the background of internal problems due to the fear of not being able to cope with one’s own experiences.
• Situational. Caused by increased anxiety, shame and fear of being misunderstood, mistrust, and dependence on the opinions of others.

Treatment prognosis

Psychotherapeutic treatment for alexithymia can last for years. The disappointing fact is that not all alexithymics are responsive to treatment, and there is a possibility that some patients will not respond to these treatments. An important condition remains the client’s strong desire and motivation to gain emotional sensitivity. Outside the therapeutic room, a person must work hard on himself independently: develop his creative abilities, join the communicative, sensory, vibrant world of people, interact with them, responding to their emotions.

Secondary alexithymia

This disorder is also called organic. It is caused by various neurological pathologies, in particular:

• disorders of intrauterine development (mother’s lifestyle during pregnancy, infections suffered by the woman, hypoxia, etc.), complicated by the course of childbirth;
• genetic predisposition;
• suffered a severe neuroinfection (encephalitis, meningitis);
• traumatic brain injury;
• neoplasms, consequences of stroke and other organic brain damage.

What is alexithymia?

What is this and how does it manifest itself?

The term “alexithymia” (a - absence; leхis - word; thymos - emotion). Alexithymia is a psychological phenomenon in which a person experiences difficulty in describing his emotions, experiences, feelings, their adequate reflection and verbalization. Such people are characterized by poor imagination and impulsiveness. They cannot accurately determine their condition, describing it in two or three words: “bad”, “normal”, “good”, specify the feelings they experience, causes, manifestations and possible consequences, and, therefore, correct their behavior. Hence the general negative state characteristic of people suffering from alexithymia. It is difficult to interpret bodily stimuli, which causes a feeling of alienation from one’s own body. The absence or deficiency of emotional life and imagination deprives their object relations of shades and color. They can, for example, borrow a “fantasy” from a book they read or a movie they watched. Thus, they learn to give the impression of normality, compensating for their lack of sensitivity, based on external reality. Alexithymia is not only a deficit in the ability to express one’s own emotions and experiences, but also an impaired ability to understand the emotional states of other people, as well as to empathize with them. Of course, this leads to difficulties in communication and constant conflict situations. The so-called “emotional intelligence” is at zero. As a result, there are social problems, inappropriate phrases and reactions that are not desirable for loved ones. Against its background, other problems of a psychosomatic nature may emerge (for example, problems with eating behavior due to the inability to feel hunger/satiety).

There are two main causes of alexithymia:

Primary - (constitutional alexithymia) - genetic disorders, in particular, in the structures of the brain (impulses from the limbic system to the cerebral cortex are suppressed), a persistent disorder.

Secondary - acquired, family scenarios, natural disasters, wars, psychological trauma. In this case, it is considered as a “defense mechanism,” although it is not a psychological defense in the classical sense.

Alexithymia appears in a family environment, where there is no place for the expression of feelings caused by real life. The emotional development of a person and, accordingly, the pathology of emotionality are directly dependent on the nature of the relationship in the mother-child system in early childhood. Difficulties in emotional response arise both with a low level of maternal care and with maternal overprotection in childhood. The mother's overprotective position, the state of fusion with him, and a jealous attitude towards the child's growing up, impede the process of differentiation. This is especially true for mothers who have their own unresolved problems and use the symbiotic unity with the child for these purposes. Thus, it is difficult for the child to internalize his own body and connect thinking and feeling. The meaning of a mother's life is to take care of this child. Often the child is not only “small, but also sick,” she treats the child as a body and is concerned only with his bodily manifestations, overexciting him with endless hygiene.

Let's return a little to post-war history, to the lives of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers who went through wars and repressions. Devastation, poverty, losses, and now the young mother was left alone. Her destiny is constant anxiety, fear, backbreaking work (she has to work and raise a child), no special joys. She is forced to control herself, but she cannot even surrender to grief, tell someone, complain, share with someone, and she “turns to stone,” closes herself off from her feelings, sometimes secretly sobbing into her pillow, but what about the child? They don’t tell him anything except “I don’t want a word, I need a word”, “tears can’t help my grief” and these words are still passed down from generation to generation, although slightly modified, for example “you never know what you want”, but the meaning remains same. This is roughly the scenario in which children, already of the third generation, are growing up.

According to statistics, alexithymia predominates among the male population with low social status and income, as well as a low level of education. A predisposition of persons with alexithymia to alcoholism and drug addiction has been noted. Why is this happening? And for men, all this was superimposed by identification with their dead and disappeared fathers. Because a boy needs, it is vitally important to be like his father. But what to do if the only thing that is known about him is that he was very brave, fought with enemies - and died or they don’t talk about him in the house because he went missing or was repressed? And if he constantly sees a “stony” mother or wife and hears “don’t touch, you’ll ruin everything,” “go away, I’ll do it myself,” “men don’t cry” - all that remains is to go into oblivion, either with the help of alcohol or like a workaholic to escape get a job from all this, or become a “real man”, “stone like steel” and feel nothing!

But this disease can be overcome.

And you need to start, like everything in this world, with words; it is important to replenish your vocabulary with words denoting shades of feelings and emotions in order to speak to yourself in your own language. The task of psychotherapy, according to A. Maslow, “is largely to give a name to the nameless experience.” People with the problem “I don’t feel anything” do not come to psychotherapy; as a rule, it is disguised as “loss of motivation,” dysfunctional family relationships, apathy, depression, and addictions. For diagnosis, projective techniques and the Toronto Alexithymic Scale (TAS) created by Taylor are used. For the purpose of psychological correction of alexithymia, psychodynamic psychotherapy is modified so that it resembles work with children, when the therapist behaves like a mother, helping in achieving psychological maturity, teaching the creation of symbols, helping to realize, observe and organize affects. Verbalization of feelings in therapy, expressing them through metaphors, symbols, drawings, body movements, facial expressions helps to establish a connection with the inner center, identity, self. In the process of therapy, you can learn to trust yourself, your feelings, and gain new experience that you can be yourself around others.

Main symptoms

Alexithymia has a number of characteristic features. This:

• poor imagination and fantasy, low creative abilities;
• inexpressive speech, devoid of metaphors, comparisons and other linguistic features (even among people with a high level of education);
• the predominance of visual thinking over abstract-logical thinking;
• inability to describe, differentiate one’s own and others’ emotions, difficulty in distinguishing between feelings and bodily sensations, the patient cannot understand whether he is upset, alarmed or irritated, which often leads to affective breakdowns and disorders;
• anxiety;
• infantilism;
• primitiveness of life goals, low level of satisfaction with life in general, inability to actively participate and influence events occurring around them;
• behavior aimed more at realizing a social role rather than at personal improvement.

Such features not only complicate a holistic perception of life, but also create difficulties in interpersonal relationships. Alexithymics usually have no friends or family. They are susceptible to stressful situations, and without the ability to understand their feelings, they do not see a way out of them.

Depending on the characteristics of the course, alexithymia occurs:

• stable, in which clinical signs are constantly expressed (usually this is an organic and pedagogical form of pathology);
• transitional (adaptive), associated with the influence of certain situations.

But the disorder is not limited to just psychological symptoms. Research on alexithymia demonstrates that the less an emotion is recognized and manifested in the form of specific feelings, words and behavior, the more psychosomatics is expressed. Thus, alexithymics are often diagnosed with:

• diseases of the cardiovascular system (most often coronary heart disease and hypertension;
• autoimmune pathologies (rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease);
• malignant neoplasms;
• diabetes;
• diseases of the digestive tract (ulcers, gastritis, colitis).

Alexithymia is often accompanied by a decrease in general and local immunity, dysfunction of the hypothalamic-pituitary system, obesity or, conversely, excessive thinness.

Types of alexithymia

In an effort to more accurately understand what alexithymia is and why it occurs, researchers have identified two forms of this disorder: primary and secondary. They differ in their nature and some features of manifestation

For effective treatment, it is very important to correctly determine which form the patient has.

Primary alexithymia

This is a deficit of emotional reactions that is physiological in nature. It may be due to the functioning of the nervous system or disturbances in its functioning. Instinctive impulses that cause emotional reactions affect the brain and other body systems. But at the same time, they bypass the process of awareness and mental regulation, which makes it difficult for a person to identify his own experiences.

Up to 85% of all patients with autism spectrum disorder suffer from primary alexithymia. Due to its physiological nature, it is practically not amenable to psychotherapeutic correction. To improve the condition of such patients, it is necessary to radically change their living conditions. They should have less stress and more opportunities to develop their emotional intelligence. To do this, they need to learn to identify their emotions according to various signs in order to compensate for the lack of natural ability to do this.

Secondary alexithymia

This form of deficit of emotional reactions is of a psychological nature and is most often caused by the denial of emotions. The reasons for this denial vary. For example, these can be various defensive reactions of the psyche, such as denial, repression, suppression and others. Because emotions are blocked or repressed, they are often not recognized, but can lead to somatic or even mental disorders.

Secondary alexithymia responds well to psychotherapeutic correction. The complexity of treatment depends on how long ago the disorder arose. If it goes back to childhood, it will be more difficult to get rid of it. And the most favorable prognosis is in cases where alexithymia developed in adulthood (for example, as a reaction to mental trauma or stressful circumstances).

The fact that it is easier to get rid of secondary alexithymia is quite logical. A person is already familiar with all emotions, he has simply lost the ability to correctly identify and interpret them. It is much easier to return this ability to an adult than to learn to understand emotions if he has never been able to do so.

Thus, the treatment of primary and secondary alexithymia has different goals. In the first case, a person learns to understand his own and other people’s emotions from scratch, and in the second, he simply remembers how this is done. A special test developed by the Toronto Alexithymia School (TAS) allows one to determine the form and degree of the disorder with fairly high accuracy.

Diagnostics

The very concept of alexithymia entered psychiatric practice relatively recently - in the late 1970s.
And until now, experts cannot come to a consensus on the question of how to cure the disease, problems related to diagnosis and classification. At the Leto mental health center, a special questionnaire, the so-called alexithymia scale (Toronto Alexithymic Scale), is used to identify pathology. This is practically the only way to assess the patient’s condition and determine tactics on how to treat the disorder.

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.

Cost of services

This list does not contain all prices for services provided by our clinic. The full price list can be found on the “Prices” , or by calling: 8(969)060-93-93. Initial consultation is FREE!

Causes of alexithymia

Developmental and social learning theories posit that alexithymia develops when children learn that expressing emotions is inappropriate or ineffective in meeting needs. For example, gender socialization theory explains the higher prevalence of alexithymia in men because they are often taught to suppress normal expressions of emotion.

The effects of social learning are enhanced in an environment in which children learn that expressing feelings is not only pointless, but also dangerous. There is significant evidence supporting the link between alexithymia and childhood maltreatment. Children who have been abused may learn to ignore or avoid emotional experiences. Alexithymia in this case is a strategy for overcoming negative affect. That is, children learn to rely on external cues and events to select behavior rather than on their emotions.

Treatment methods

The doctor prescribes medications only to correct concomitant disorders, normalize sleep, eliminate anxiety, etc. Psychotherapy plays a major role. In our clinic, psychologists practice the following treatment methods:

• body-oriented work aimed at understanding one’s own body, the ability to manage its condition, accept it, and differentiate bodily sensations;
• training in stress management techniques;
• increased self-esteem;
• determination of life goals, prospects for personal growth;
• increasing flexibility of thinking and behavior;
• strengthening emotional stability;
• normalization of the sphere of relationships, including work with family members of the patient.

Alexithymia is extremely difficult to treat, but we know how to get rid of the painful illness and avoid severe social and physical consequences. Call us at 8(969)060-93-93 and make an appointment at any convenient time!

Alexithymia - causes, symptoms, signs, treatment

All people tend to communicate and show their emotions. We smile, shrug our shoulders, gesture with our hands, rub our foreheads, etc. In this way we express our impressions or emphasize our attitude towards words and actions. It is a normal tool for human communication.

But there are individuals who find it very difficult to express their thoughts, feelings, emotions, and experiences. They cannot tell us in words or formulate their feeling normally. Looking at them, it is impossible to understand what feelings he is experiencing at the moment. Whether he is afraid of something, whether he is happy, sad, surprised, hates or loves - this is a secret under seven seals.

Psychologists call this condition alexithymia. In simple terms, this is a violation of empathy. The individual finds himself in complete social isolation: he is not understood and considered a stranger.

The term owes its origin to the ancient Greek words: “ἀ” - a prefix of negation, “λέξις”, which can be translated into Russian as a word, and “θυμός” - a feeling. All together means “without words for feelings.” It was first proposed by Harvard psychiatrist Peter Sifneos.

You can take the test online HERE.

It is not officially recognized as a mental illness. It can arise in childhood (be congenital) or appear with autism, disorders in the development of brain activity, after intrauterine trauma. It may appear in adulthood due to psychological trauma.

Researchers have noticed that it most often occurs in men whose work involves stressful situations and life-threatening situations. It is also characteristic of some professions where it is necessary not to express feelings and remain unperturbed: judges, prosecutors, lawyers, doctors and others.

Signs

Let’s try to list only the main signs and symptoms that can be used to determine the presence of alexithymia in a person. This:

• Having problems identifying any feelings in yourself.
• The imagination becomes primitive, it is difficult to characterize something. There are no creative inclinations.
• Intuition is practically zero.
• Stereotyped thinking.
• Oddly enough, analytical and logical abilities are above average.
• Stress resistance, emotional dryness, and lack of empathy arise.
• A constant desire to isolate yourself, to be alone.

Treatment and prevention

The first step is to take the test. If you identify such phenomena in yourself, you should not self-medicate in any way. Only experienced doctors can help deal with this problem.

• ️ Allow yourself to express emotions.
• ️ Accumulate only the most rosy, pleasant memories and events.
• ️ Don't be afraid to touch others during a conversation. Unobtrusively, without familiarity or condescending pats on the shoulder.
• ️ Learn to relax physically and spiritually.
• ️ Don't punish yourself for showing emotional behavior.

️What is it fraught with?

• The nervous system begins to deplete.
• Posture is distorted, as muscle tone does not go anywhere.
• Psychological problems arise due to emotional callousness.
• Interference occurs when communicating with strangers.

In conclusion, we can say that you can start rebuilding your life at any age. There is nothing wrong with visiting a psychotherapist. Qualified specialists are well aware of problems of this kind. They will tell you what needs to be done. Be healthy!