Alexithymia is an inability or considerable difficulty in identification, experience, and description of emotions; recently, the disorder has also come to be known as “emotional blindness.” While it cannot be considered solidly as a disorder of mental health in the DSM-5, alexithymia is a common situation that challenges the professional knowledge of mental health experts. Its relationship ties in with psychiatric conditions of depression and anxiety, individually and together, childhood adverse experiences, and somatic conditions like traumatic brain injuries and Parkinson’s disease.
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how alexithymia affects mental health and relationships.
Not being able to recognize one’s feelings may have a critical effect on mental health, behavioral changes in a person, and strained relationships. About 10% of the whole population is estimated to have alexithymia. Not being able to recognize and express one’s feelings will make life very challenging and impossible to interact with people. A device helping individuals with alexithymia identify and describe their feelings is an emotional wheel.
The causes of alexithymia
Alexithymia is a dense texture, the exact nature of which up to date is not entirely clear to specialists, who suggest that it can be caused by genetic, neurological, and developmental factors. The condition has no bias between sexes and is sometimes viewed as more of a personality characteristic than an independent disorder. Nevertheless, alexithymia prevails in patients affected by different mental pathologies: anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, eating disorders, substance use disorders, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
More importantly, alexithymia has been linked to several behavioral, neurological, and medical conditions, such as autism spectrum disorder, traumatic brain injuries, stroke, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis. Trauma and adverse experiences in childhood ranks top on the list of causes for alexithymia.
The Aetiology of Alexithymia
alexithymia was coined in 1973 by psychotherapist Peter Emanuel Sifneos. Dr. Cynthia King, a clinical psychologist and co-founder of FemFwd, says that alexithymia may actually be a more common survival tactic of sustained childhood abuse. Children who go through years of abuse often dissociate from their feelings purely as a survival mechanism and grow up to become adults cut off from their feelings and senses.
Psychological and Relationship Consequences of Alexithymia
Alexithymia can realize itself in the extremities of psychological distress and maladjustment to the environment. According to Dr. Brett Marroquin, a clinical psychologist, emotions are like signals that appraise events and situations for level of safety, urgency, or other relevant features of situations. Alexithymic individuals cannot read these ‘signals’ appropriately, which does very little to help in making decisions, thereby charting a course for emotional dysregulation.
More particularly, alexithymia affects interpersonal relationships. Emotions in others are not readily recognized and there is a failure to respond to such thus leading to misconceptions and unfulfilled needs. An individual can also fail to express his or her emotions thus hindering emotional closeness and understanding. This might make the partners think that they are bored or disinterested when it is not so.
Everyday Examples on Alexithymia
The following examples will illustrate how alexithymia may affect various relationships:
Financial disagreements—for example, if one has an argument related to monetary matters, the alexithymic person might seem disinterested or missing. They know they feel off, but they cannot define the emotions, which keeps the conflicts unresolved and further dissatisfaction with the relationship.
Life Decisions: While making major life decisions, a non-alexithymic individual would look toward the partner for emotional feedback. Since the signals in the form of feedback do not emerge from an alexithymic partner, the isolation that is felt while making that decision will provoke a feeling of not being supported enough in the partner’s decision, hence possibly straining the relationship.
Intimacy Issues: A person suffering from alexithymia typically tends to show problem in both emotional as well as sexual intimacy. In most cases, an alexithymic individual will seldom initiate sex or even talk about personal feelings. This makes the other partner feel unwanted and unloved. This can increase frustration and distrust.
Case Example: Alexithymia and Complex PTSD
Dr. King described the case of a lady in her 40`s who had undergone horrible abuse in her childhood, which has evolved into complex PTSD with alexithymia. The patient was very successful in the business field but couldn’t define what she felt, particularly in her love life. This inability to express feelings led to the absence of closeness and frequent breakups.
Dealing with Alexithymia
Although alexithymia is hard to deal with, there are proficient ways to cope and increase emotional awareness. Many times, therapy is the best means. The therapist will help the patient work through the stages of labeling, describing, and becoming aware of their emotions. There is a very strong healer tool used in therapy called the emotional wheel, which helps people move from the basic emotional label to more specific descriptions in order to bring clarity to emotions.
Supporting Someone with Alexithymia
One has to be compassionate and empathetic towards supporting a loved one with alexithymia condition. The following may help,
Be emphatic-alexithymia is at times a symptom of other medical or psychological disease.
Understand about its occurrence: Keep the talk on the condition and try to research about it. A little understanding about this could help understand what may have caused it.
Give space — let your loved one find their feelings on their own. Do not force one to do so.
Agree on the support systems: Assist them in finding a mutually agreed system that will help in supporting themselves toward emotion identification.
Conclusion: Alexithymia, referred to as emotional blindness, leading to negative effects on mental health and relationships by averting or minimizing the ability to identify and verbalize one’s emotions. Though not fully considered a mental health condition, it is usually a feature for people who have co-occurring depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Knowing its roots, from genetic factors to childhood trauma, and manifestations is critical in providing appropriate support and interventions.
At worst, therapy could be entered into with the use of tools like the emotional wheel to help a person develop emotional perception and expression. For those supporting loved ones with alexithymia, empathy, patience, and effective communication are important.
While alexithymia does allow for improvement in emotional clarity, which subsequently leads to healthier relationships and general well-being if one achieves better understanding and adapts coping mechanisms, the difficulties of alexithymia can be managed through continued awareness and support for a much more fulfilling emotional experience.
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- Hogeveen J, Grafman J. Alexithymia. Handbook of Clinical Neurology. 2021;183:47-62. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-822290-4.00004-9
- Goerlich KS. The Multifaceted Nature of Alexithymia – A Neuroscientific Perspective. Frontiers in Psychology. 2018;9. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01614