Alexithymia is a time period you could not have heard earlier than. However it describes one thing many individuals expertise: difficulties in figuring out, distinguishing and expressing feelings.
It impacts how individuals interact with their feelings at work, in relationships and even inside themselves. It could additionally change how an individual analyses their environment and the way they work together with the world.
It isn’t straightforward to inform if somebody you recognize has alexithymia. Usually, an individual could not even realise they’ve it themself. It’s extremely a lot an inside phenomenon that an individual experiences.
The time period “alexithymia” was first described in analysis within the Seventies and there’s no medical prognosis. It’s thought to have an effect on roughly 10% of the overall inhabitants, although.
The phrase itself is taken from Greek roots – “a” (not), “lexis” (phrases), and “thymia” (soul or feelings) – and interprets, roughly, as “no words for emotions”.
Alexithymia is carefully associated to 1’s sense of interoception, which is the power to interpret and label one’s inside states. Folks with diminished interoception, additionally known as “alexisomia”, cannot simply inform if they’re hungry, thirsty, drained, aroused or in ache.
It is essential to level out that alexithymia is not a one-size-fits-all expertise. It differs from individual to individual. Autistic individuals, for example, expertise it at a better fee – between 33% and 66% in comparison with the overall inhabitants.
It is also extra frequent amongst individuals with obsessive compulsive dysfunction, premenstrual dysphoric dysfunction, post-traumatic stress dysfunction, nervousness and despair. Some individuals have at all times had alexithymia whereas others purchase it via trauma.
If an individual is not capable of determine what they’re feeling, they could be extra more likely to suppress or ignore these bodily sensations, and fewer more likely to mitigate any issues. On this approach it’s more durable for them to control themselves emotionally and so they could expertise feeling overwhelmed extra usually.
One attribute of alexithymia is an externally oriented pondering model. That is the place individuals give attention to what’s taking place round them somewhat than their very own emotional processes for info.
Somebody with alexithymia could have to look again at an occasion to grasp what they had been feeling at that specific second via contextual clues. They usually adapt their actions to deal with this in future conditions.
For autistic individuals particularly, alexithymia could make it difficult to interpret social cues reminiscent of facial expressions. This will likely change into overwhelming and lead an individual to expertise meltdowns.
Folks with alexithymia might also reply in a different way to occasions that sometimes provoke communal feelings, such because the demise of a star or a marriage announcement. Reactions that will appear misplaced to others can result in misunderstandings and frustration for these concerned.
Emotional consciousness
Alexithymia impacts how an individual experiences and interprets feelings, from noticing bodily sensations within the physique, to figuring out them as particular emotions and deciding find out how to reply.
Understanding at which level somebody struggles on this course of might help decide the form of assist they could want.
Whereas alexithymia can have an effect on an individual’s connection to their feelings, emotional consciousness is a ability that may be developed in maturity and improved over time.
Practising naming feelings and bodily sensations is one technique that may assist individuals with alexithymia higher perceive themselves. One other is studying to determine how these are represented within the physique.
Rebecca Ellis, Assistant researcher in Public Well being, Swansea College
This text is republished from The Dialog beneath a Inventive Commons license. Learn the unique article.
