What are the symptoms of alexithymia?

As a condition marked by lack of feelings, it can be difficult to recognize the symptoms of alexithymia….Symptoms

• anger.
• confusion.
• difficulty “reading faces”
• discomfort.
• emptiness.
• increased heart rate.
• lack of affection.
• panic.

Is alexithymia a form of autism?

Although alexithymia is not a core feature of autism, recent studies have found varying degrees of this trait in 50 to 85\% of individuals with ASD.

How do you manage alexithymia?

Treatments for Alexithymia Don’t punish, shame or mock their emotional unresponsiveness. Instead, practice patience. Consider explaining your needs in briefer terms, “I’m feeling tired, I don’t want to cook. Let’s get take-out for dinner.” Or helping them label emotions, “You look angry.

Do people with alexithymia lack empathy?

Moreover, alexithymia is linked to deficits in empathy, i.e., the ability to take the perspective of others and to understand others’ feelings and intentions. In fact, alexithymia has been found to be a transdiagnostic precursor of empathic difficulties (Valdespino et al., 2017).

The inability to verbalize one’s own emotions or the emotions of others

How does alexithymia affect relationships?

How does alexithymia affect relationships? Alexithymia can create interpersonal problems because these individuals tend to avoid emotionally close relationships, or if they do form relationships with others they usually position themselves as either dependent, dominant, or impersonal, “such that the relationship remains superficial”.

What does alexithymic mean?

Alexithymia /ˌeɪlɛksəˈθaɪmiə/ is a personality construct characterized by the subclinical inability to identify and describe emotions in the self. The core characteristics of alexithymia are marked dysfunction in emotional awareness, social attachment, and interpersonal relating.

How does alexithymia develop?

Some cases of alexithymia are neurological, meaning that it is caused by a deficiency in the brain pathways that process emotion. Others develop psychological alexithymia as a self-defense measure against the emotionally indigestible, such as terminal illness, or post-traumatic stress disorder.