Alexithymia is a time period you might not have heard earlier than. Nevertheless it describes one thing many individuals expertise: difficulties in figuring out, distinguishing and expressing feelings.
It impacts how folks have interaction 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 is not straightforward to inform if somebody you understand has alexithymia. Usually, an individual could not even realise they’ve it themself. It’s extremely a lot an inner phenomenon that an individual experiences.
The time period “alexithymia” was first described in analysis within the Nineteen Seventies and there’s no scientific 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 intently associated to at least one’s sense of interoception, which is the power to interpret and label one’s inner states. Individuals 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 folks, as an example, expertise it at a better price – between 33% and 66% in comparison with the overall inhabitants.
It is also extra widespread amongst folks with obsessive compulsive dysfunction, premenstrual dysphoric dysfunction, post-traumatic stress dysfunction, anxiousness and despair. Some folks have at all times had alexithymia whereas others purchase it by means of trauma.
If an individual is not in a position to establish what they’re feeling, they might be extra more likely to suppress or ignore these bodily sensations, and fewer more likely to mitigate any issues. On this manner it’s tougher for them to manage themselves emotionally they usually could expertise feeling overwhelmed extra usually.
One attribute of alexithymia is an externally oriented pondering model. That is the place folks deal with what’s taking place round them fairly than their very own emotional processes for data.
Somebody with alexithymia could have to look again at an occasion to grasp what they have been feeling at that exact second by means of contextual clues. They usually adapt their actions to deal with this in future conditions.
For autistic folks specifically, alexithymia could make it difficult to interpret social cues comparable to facial expressions. This will likely change into overwhelming and lead an individual to expertise meltdowns.
Individuals with alexithymia may additionally reply in a different way to occasions that sometimes provoke communal feelings, such because the loss of life of a celeb 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 how you can reply.
Understanding at which level somebody struggles on this course of will help decide the sort of assist they might 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 folks with alexithymia higher perceive themselves. One other is studying to establish 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.
