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 have interaction with their feelings at work, in relationships and even inside themselves. It might 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 already know has alexithymia. Typically, an individual might 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 medical prognosis. It’s thought to have an effect on roughly 10% of the final 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 1’s sense of interoception, which is the flexibility to interpret and label one’s inner states. Folks with decreased 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, as an example, expertise it at a better fee – between 33% and 66% in comparison with the final inhabitants.
It is also extra widespread amongst individuals with obsessive compulsive dysfunction, premenstrual dysphoric dysfunction, post-traumatic stress dysfunction, anxiousness and melancholy. Some individuals have at all times had alexithymia whereas others purchase it by way of trauma.
If an individual is not capable of determine what they’re feeling, they could be extra prone to suppress or ignore these bodily sensations, and fewer prone to mitigate any issues. On this means it’s tougher for them to manage themselves emotionally they usually might expertise feeling overwhelmed extra usually.
One attribute of alexithymia is an externally oriented pondering type. That is the place individuals concentrate on what’s occurring round them somewhat than their very own emotional processes for info.
Somebody with alexithymia might have to look again at an occasion to grasp what they have been feeling at that specific second by way of contextual clues. They usually adapt their actions to deal with this in future conditions.
For autistic individuals specifically, alexithymia could make it difficult to interpret social cues equivalent to facial expressions. This will likely turn into overwhelming and lead an individual to expertise meltdowns.
Folks with alexithymia can also reply in a different way to occasions that usually 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 the best way to reply.
Understanding at which level somebody struggles on this course of will help decide the sort of help 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
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