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    Emotionally Dumb: An Overview of Alexithymia
    Emotionally Dumb: An Overview of Alexithymia
    Emotionally Dumb: An Overview of Alexithymia
    Ebook169 pages2 hours

    Emotionally Dumb: An Overview of Alexithymia

    By Peter Wright

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    About this ebook

    Alexithymia is an inability to identify and describe both one's own, and other people's emotions. Although individuals with alexithymia display the typical physical responses associated with emotions - such as tears, butterflies in the stomach or an increased heart rate - they are unable to recognize these responses in terms of the emotions they might be signifying.

    Emotionally Dumb describes the nature of alexithymia and includes therapeutic and self-help suggestions for overcoming some of the difficulties that alexithymia presents. The author discusses the possible causes and associated conditions, including Asperger Syndrome and posttraumatic stress disorder. The book provides details of the diagnostic tests available and includes an informal questionnaire, developed by the author, for people who believe they may have alexithymia.

    Written in accessible language, this book is ideal both for professionals and for anyone with an interest in the subject.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPeter Wright
    Release dateDec 31, 2014
    ISBN9780646512518
    Emotionally Dumb: An Overview of Alexithymia

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      Book preview

      Emotionally Dumb - Peter Wright

      Emotionally Dumb

      An Overview of Alexithymia

      Jason Thompson

      First published in 2009

      by Soul Books

      Copyright: Jason Thompson 2009

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material or electronic form without purchase or written permission from the copyright holder, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

      Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publisher Soul Books at hippolytus_101@yahoo.com.au

      Warning: The doing of an unauthorized act in relation to a copyright work may result in both a civil claim for damages and criminal prosecution.

      National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication-Data

      Thompson, Jason. Emotionally Dumb: an overview of alexithymia

      1st ed.

      Bibliography

      Includes index

      ISBN 978-0-646-51251-8 (E-book)

      1. Emotional Intelligence. 2. Alexithymia. 3. Imagination

      For Alice and Peter

      whose voices will be heard

      Contents

      Introduction

      Chapter 1 - What Is Alexithymia?

      ~Description

      ~Difficulty identifying and describing feelings

      ~Impaired imagination

      ~Thinking style bound to the external world

      Chapter 2 - How Is Alexithymia Caused?

      ~Biogenic alexithymia

      ~Psychogenic alexithymia

      ~Primary and secondary alexithymia

      ~Neurological structures thought to be involved

      Chapter 3 - What Alexithymia Is Not

      ~Psychopathy/sociopathy

      ~Schizoid personality disorder

      ~Stoicism, and repression of emotions

      ~Normative male alexithymia

      ~Shyness and social phobia

      ~Apathy

      Chapter 4 - Overlapping Concepts and Co-morbidities

      ~Autism and Asperger’s syndrome

      ~Obsessive compulsiveness

      ~Eating disorders

      ~Posttraumatic stress disorder

      ~Personality disorders

      ~Depressive and anxiety disorders

      ~Psychosomatic disorders

      ~Substance abuse

      ~Physical diseases and injuries

      Chapter 5 - Associated Characteristics and Behaviours

      ~Communication style

      ~Anhedonia and negativity

      ~Hypochondria

      ~Sleep disturbances and poverty of dreams

      ~Involuntary emotional expression

      ~Intimate relationships

      ~Alexithymia in old age

      Chapter 6 - Alexithymic Parenting

      ~Difficulty identifying feelings

      ~Misattunement and misinterpretation

      ~Random unregulated emotion discharging

      ~Exploitation of children’s cognitive abilities

      ~Mechanical, externally oriented cognitive style

      ~Family relationships and support issues

      Chapter 7 - Therapy and Self-Help

      ~Biofeedback

      ~Imaginal feedback

      ~Self-help

      ~Family therapy

      ~Pharmacology

      Chapter 8 - Assessment

      ~How do I tell if I have alexithymia?

      ~Beth Israel Questionnaire

      ~Toronto Alexithymia Scale

      ~Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire

      ~Alexithymia Questionnaire for Children

      ~Online Alexithymia Questionnaire

      ~BarOn Emotional Quotient Inventory

      ~Scored Archetypal Test

      ~Two-Factor Imagination Scale

      Chapter 9 - An Exploration of Alexithymia and Metaphor

      Chapter 10 - Emotional Intelligence/Imaginal Intelligence

      AFTERWORD: A note on Classification

      APPENDIX A: Two-Factor Imagination Scale

      REFERENCES

      READING MATERIAL

      Introduction

      To launch into a description of low emotional intelligence or ‘alexithymia’ is timely, for interest in the subject has grown dramatically since its original description in the early 1970s (Sifneos 1973). With the 1996 publication of Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence came a further leap in popular understanding of the value of emotional skills for leading a fulfilling life, and conversely of the vicissitudes one may face without a good grasp on these skills.

      Since Goleman’s publication, emotional intelligence or ‘EQ’ has been studied in hundreds of thousands of individuals and results have provided a better understanding along with new methods for improving emotional capabilities. The initially separate constructs of alexithymia and emotional intelligence came to the attention of researchers who realized they were intimately related, with alexithymia representing the lower possible range of emotional intelligence. This realization has spawned a rich cross-fertilization of ideas, whereby aspects of each construct may be considered as opposite ends of a single emotional abilities spectrum.

      Alexithymia is known to accompany a broad variety of medical and psychiatric illnesses, ranging from cancer or psychosomatic conditions to personality and posttraumatic stress disorders, touching the lives of thousands of sufferers and those in close relationships with them. The alexithymic person is unable to discriminate the usual nuances of emotional life, leading to immense difficulties in personal and interpersonal functioning. To feel and speak one’s emotions seems a most basic human ability, so it is hard to imagine individuals incapable of recognizing and speaking about their most basic feelings. These difficulties are compounded by the lack of accessible (i.e. non-academic) texts on the subject. I hope therefore that the straightforward description of alexithymia in this book will increase general understanding of the condition. I further hope that an increase in understanding may help, both directly and indirectly, those most affected in coping with the condition.

      In everyday language the terms ‘feeling’ and ‘emotion’ are often used inter-changeably. In this volume I will be using these terms in their more strict psychiatric sense where ‘emotion’ refers to physical arousal evidenced by such signs as smiling, crying, laughing, body tension, blushing, tight stomach, posturing, voice intonation, elevated pulse, etc., and where ‘feeling’ refers to one’s mental recognition, understanding, and verbal accounting of the manifestations of emotional arousal. Alexithymic individuals may display full-blown emotions, but they do not necessarily understand the significance of these emotions on a mental level. To put it another way, alexithymia involves an essential deficit in one’s ability to evaluate feelings, but not in the realm of emotional excitation.

      Alexithymia may be to some degree a universal feature in all human beings, where we each display some anxiety, sadness or melancholia that is obvious to onlookers but not to ourselves; until someone points out ‘You look a little anxious’ and we suddenly realize we have been in the grip of a mood of which we had little awareness. Likewise we may not recognize when even our closest intimates show signs of irritation, anger or other emotion until they spell it out for us. Those with extreme alexithymia share this propensity but in a radical way; they rarely, if ever, have a clear sense of emotional states in themselves or others, and it is this pervasive deficit that researchers of the last few decades have sought to understand and define.

      My interest in Archetypal Psychology combined with an intimate involvement with alexithymic individuals has fostered a keen interest in this subject, and led to the construction of an alexithymia questionnaire (see appendix) for those wanting an indication of their alexithymia level before undergoing the rigmarole of sourcing and financing a more thoroughgoing clinical assessment. In the following pages I will attempt to faithfully restate the findings of some of the main research on the subject to date, while comparing and contrasting alexithymia with a variety of subjects to provide a clearer picture of the condition. Throughout the book you will find a persistent mention of the stunted alexithymic imagination, particularly in the latter half of the book where I posit that these individuals may unlock their absent emotional understanding by gaining a better access to spontaneous imagination.

      In chapters 9 and 10 include essays on ‘Alexithymia and Metaphor’ and ‘Emotional Intelligence is Really Imaginal Intelligence’ which were first published on Stephanie Pope’s Mythopoetry.com website in 2008-2009, and have been updated for this volume.

      C h a p t e r 1

      What Is

      Alexithymia?

      Description

      The behaviour now known as alexithymia was first described in detail by psychiatrists Peter E. Sifneos and John C. Nemiah, who were working at the Beth Israel Hospital with patients displaying psychosomatic disturbances. Many of these patients showed extreme difficulties in talking about their emotions, and in 1972 Sifneos coined the word alexithymia meaning ‘without words for emotions’ (from the Greek a = lack, lexis = word, thymos = emotion) to denote the cluster of behaviours he was witnessing (Sifneos 1973). Later that decade more researchers joined the emerging study of alexithymia, most notably psychoanalysts Joyce McDougall, Henry Krystal, and Graeme Taylor, whose 1997 co-authored book on alexithymia confirmed his reputation as a leading authority on the subject.

      Over the past few decades the alexithymia concept has been refined theoretically, where it is presently defined by the following features:

      1. difficulty identifying feelings and distinguishing between feelings and the bodily sensations of emotional arousal

      2. difficulty describing feelings to other people

      3. impaired imagination

      4. thinking style bound to the external world

      (Taylor, Bagby and Parker 1997).

      Difficulty identifying and describing feelings

      Individuals with alexithymia have difficulty recognizing emotional states as they are happening. They may on later reflection gain a vague sense that they were in the grip of a strong emotion, like tearful sadness or rageful anger, but are usually at a loss when trying to piece together what caused such emotions to manifest; that is, they cannot picture what stimulated the mood. At most they might have an uncomfortable sense of something changing inside their body – increased heart rate, blushing or butterflies in the stomach – and when pressed to give an account of their feelings, the alexithymic will have no words to offer, may fumble with a contrived answer or simply change the subject.

      More often the individual will misread the physical expression of emotion as a physical expression of disease; for example, where the tears on the cheek become not sadness but a defective tear duct; the racing heart of passion, a faulty valve; or an anxious tightening in the stomach, appendicitis. One is reminded here of Jung’s words, The gods have become diseases; Zeus no longer rules Olympus but rather the solar plexus, and produces curious specimens for the doctor’s consulting room. (1967, p.37) Alternatively, emotional states may be blamed on adverse environmental

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