09 Feb Relational alexythimia

Alexithymia is the inability to express feelings with words. Sometimes its even described as a state of deficiency in understanding, processing, or describing emotions. This is a symptom, or even trait, seen  in various psychiatric disorders.

Anyway, one of these days I had a glance of a thought about The Schopenhauer Cure, a novel by Irvin D. Yalom, a book I read some years ago. Yalom, the excellent author and psychiatrist, tells the story about an eloquent, and ecxisit verbal guy, who live by the pessimistic philosphical teachings of the the german philosopher. He then goes into group therapy, and the exchange between him and the rest of the group, and the therapist, gives interesting perspectives for all parties. 

First of all, the main character being well-formulated and having a solid verbal repertoire made me think of pretend mode, a term coined by mentalizing (minding the mind) approach. This mode embodies that for example a strong verbal repertoire, or flow of words, don’t cohere with the actual emotional states. Perhaps mostly because there’s as disconnectedness to the emotional sphere. The words create an imagined wall between the emotions and the outside world, where the person hide their feelings behind. A consequense of this kind of pretend mode, is a relational alexythimia. Perhaps not very different from ‘normal’ alexythimia, though my point being this: when emotions are difficult to connect with within, it becomes even more challenging to try and say something about how you feel to the people you interact with. And this, of course, makes interaction challenging. Both for the messenger and the reciever.