Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsSo, What Exactly Causes Alexithymia?These Are the Ways in Which Alexithymia Affects PeopleHow to Cope With AlexithymiaHow to Support Someone With Alexithymia

Table of ContentsView All

View All

Table of Contents

So, What Exactly Causes Alexithymia?

These Are the Ways in Which Alexithymia Affects People

How to Cope With Alexithymia

How to Support Someone With Alexithymia

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Alexithymia, also known as, “emotional blindness” refers to a difficulty or an inability to identify, experience, and describe your emotions.

tl;drIf you’ve noticed that it’s difficult to label and identify your emotions—you might have alexithymia aka “emotional blindness.“Alexithymia is not a mental health condition on its own; it’s often asymptomof a mental health disorder.Being unable to label and express your feelings can impact your life in many ways, but utilizing tools like an emotions wheel can help.

tl;dr

If you’ve noticed that it’s difficult to label and identify your emotions—you might have alexithymia aka “emotional blindness.“Alexithymia is not a mental health condition on its own; it’s often asymptomof a mental health disorder.Being unable to label and express your feelings can impact your life in many ways, but utilizing tools like an emotions wheel can help.

If you’ve noticed that it’s difficult to label and identify your emotions—you might have alexithymia aka “emotional blindness.”

Alexithymia is not a mental health condition on its own; it’s often asymptomof a mental health disorder.

Being unable to label and express your feelings can impact your life in many ways, but utilizing tools like an emotions wheel can help.

Here, we’ll take a closer look at alexithymia, including causes, impacts, treatments, coping, and how to support someone who has alexithymia.

How to Express Your Feelings

Experts aren’t sure what causes alexithymia. There may be genetic, neurological, and developmental contributions. It affects bothgendersequally, and is often thought of as a personality trait more than anything else. Still, it’s more likely to affect people with mental health conditions, including:

Alexithymia is also linked to certain behavioral, neurological, and medical conditions such as autism spectrum disorder, traumatic brain injuries, stroke, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis.

Finally, alexithymia is often associated with trauma andadverse childhood experiences.This is something that Cynthia King, Psy.D., clinical psychologist and co-founder ofFemFwd, sees frequently among her patients, particularly those who are adult survivors of prolonged child abuse and who have developedcomplex PTSD.

Did You Know?

“When abuse begins in childhood and is prolonged, it does not serve the child to be able to identify, label, and express feelings,” she explains. As such, shutting down and detaching from feelings becomes a survival mechanism. “Over time, these children become adults who have no idea what they are feeling,” Dr. King explains.

How Emotional Abuse in Childhood Changes the Brain

Living with alexithymia can have significant impacts on your day to day life and relationships. Here’s what that may look like.

Cynthia King, PsyD, clinical psychologistWhen abuse begins in childhood and is prolonged, it does not serve the child to be able to identify, label, and express feelings.

Cynthia King, PsyD, clinical psychologist

When abuse begins in childhood and is prolonged, it does not serve the child to be able to identify, label, and express feelings.

Psychological Impacts

Experiencing alexithymia can lead to high levels of psychological distress.It can also make it difficult for you to interact with your environment, explains Brett Marroquin, PhD, clinical psychologist in private practice atSolid Ground CBTand associate professor of psychological science at Loyola Marymount University.

“Emotions tell us whether events or situations are safe or dangerous, urgent or non-urgent, relevant or irrelevant to ourselves, and so on,” Dr. Marroquin describes. “People who struggle in discerning their own emotions are less equipped to make interpretations and decisions about themselves and the world because those signals are murkier.”

Additionally, they may have difficulty withemotional regulation, because they have less knowledge about what to regulate, he says.

Relationship Impacts

Interpersonal relationshipsare one of the areas where alexithymia can have the greatest impact. There are a few reasons why this happens, according to Dr. King:

In a nutshell, people with alexithymia have trouble sharing emotions with others, which leads to all types of relationship challenges. “This can lead others to perceive the person as unemotional, uninterested, or disengaged, which aren’t necessarily the case,” says Dr. Marroquin. “It can also pose challenges for emotional connection in relationships, which are built on a pattern of mutual emotional disclosure, responsiveness, and empathy.”

Real Life Examples

On the other hand, someone struggling with alexithymia might have more vague conceptions of emotions, such as “something feels weird,” or “I feel bad,” or may simply feel confused about how they feel, Dr. Marroquin says.

Case Study

Dr. King shared a case study of someone she worked with who had complex PTSD and experienced alexithymia as a symptom.

Cynthia King, PsyD, clinical psychologistShe was highly successful in her career and could not understand why she couldn’t even begin to do something as simple as identify her own feelings.

She was highly successful in her career and could not understand why she couldn’t even begin to do something as simple as identify her own feelings.

“She was unable to share her feelings with her significant others, though she desperately wanted to,” Dr. King described. “She was highly successful in her career and could not understand why she couldn’t even begin to do something as simple as identify her own feelings.”

What to Do If Your Partner Won’t Talk About Their Feelings

If you are living with alexithymia, it’s important to understand that there are ways to cope and it’s possible that you can get better at identifying and expressing your feelings.

You Can Get Better at Expressing Your Feelings

There’s a common conception that people with alexithymia will always be that way, but that’s not always the case, especially if it has psychological causes, says Dr. Marroquin. “Alexithymia doesn’t have to be fixed or static, although it can be in cases like certain psychotic disorders,dementia, neurodevelopmental disorder, or brain injury,” he explains.

What Are ‘I Feel’ Statements?

Seeing a loved one struggle with alexithymia can be challenging and you may not know what to do or how to help. If you are noticing a loved one is struggling with being aware of their emotions or expressing them, Dr. King offered some tips for support:

If you want to support them in better understanding their emotions, do this only after you and they have come up with an agreed-upon system that feels supportive for everyone involved.

How Accepting Difficult Emotions Can Improve Emotional Health

3 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Ricciardi L, Demartini B, Fotopoulou A, et al.Alexithymia in Neurological Disease: A Review. Journal of Neuropsychiatry. 2015. doi:10.1176/appi.neuropsych.14070169Hogeveen J, Grafman J.Alexithymia. Handbook of Clinical Neurology. 2021;183:47-62. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-822290-4.00004-9Goerlich KS.The Multifaceted Nature of Alexithymia – A Neuroscientific Perspective.Frontiers in Psychology. 2018;9. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01614

3 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Ricciardi L, Demartini B, Fotopoulou A, et al.Alexithymia in Neurological Disease: A Review. Journal of Neuropsychiatry. 2015. doi:10.1176/appi.neuropsych.14070169Hogeveen J, Grafman J.Alexithymia. Handbook of Clinical Neurology. 2021;183:47-62. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-822290-4.00004-9Goerlich KS.The Multifaceted Nature of Alexithymia – A Neuroscientific Perspective.Frontiers in Psychology. 2018;9. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01614

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

Ricciardi L, Demartini B, Fotopoulou A, et al.Alexithymia in Neurological Disease: A Review. Journal of Neuropsychiatry. 2015. doi:10.1176/appi.neuropsych.14070169Hogeveen J, Grafman J.Alexithymia. Handbook of Clinical Neurology. 2021;183:47-62. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-822290-4.00004-9Goerlich KS.The Multifaceted Nature of Alexithymia – A Neuroscientific Perspective.Frontiers in Psychology. 2018;9. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01614

Ricciardi L, Demartini B, Fotopoulou A, et al.Alexithymia in Neurological Disease: A Review. Journal of Neuropsychiatry. 2015. doi:10.1176/appi.neuropsych.14070169

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

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