What is a person with no emotions?

Despite the name, the real problem for people with alexithymia isn't so much that they have no words for their emotions, but that they lack the emotions themselves. Still, not everyone with the condition has the same experiences. Some have gaps and distortions in the typical emotional repertoire.

What is a person with no emotions called?

Apathetic means uncaring. It's an adjective form of apathy—the state of not caring. It can also mean the absence or suppression of emotion or passion. Apathetic is especially used to describe people with a lack of interest or concern about things, especially those that others find important or exciting.

What disorder is having no emotions?

If you have schizoid personality disorder, you may be seen as a loner or dismissive of others, and you may lack the desire or skill to form close personal relationships. Because you don't tend to show emotion, you may appear as though you don't care about others or what's going on around you.

What causes emotionless behavior?

Feeling emotionless can often be a symptom of mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic disorder so it's not something to dismiss or downplay. In these cases, seeking the help of a professional is crucial. So remember you don't have to work through this alone.

Do psychopaths feel emotion?

Psychopaths are not incapable of feeling emotions, like regret and disappointment, but what they cannot do is make accurate predictions about the outcomes of their choices, according to a study co-authored by Joshua Buckholtz, associate professor of psychology at Harvard.

Weird Life of People Who Live Without Any Emotions

Can someone with alexithymia love you?

Can alexithymic people feel love? People with alexithymia can feel love when it's strong enough. They just can't describe or express it in a way that provides others with emotional validation. Instead, they may express their love through action, rather than words or affection.

Is alexithymia a form of autism?

It is important to note that alexithymia is not autism, but simply a distorted emotional processing that is co-occurring among individuals with ASD. Alexithymia is a psychological construct that is defined by difficulties in emotion procession, and should therefore not be considered as a diagnosis of a condition.

How does a person with alexithymia act?

Alexithymia is not a condition in its own right, but rather an inability to identify and describe emotions. People with alexithymia have difficulties recognizing and communicating their own emotions, and they also struggle to recognize and respond to emotions in others.

Do people with alexithymia have empathy?

In the behavioral results of MET, highly alexithymic individuals showed impairment in emotional empathy, both in the explicit measure of emotional concern for others and in the implicit measure of being aroused by the emotional states of others.

Is alexithymia psychopathic?

The prototypic person with alexithymia, however, is anxious, overcontrolled, submissive, boring, ethically consistent, and socially conforming, whereas the prototypic individual with psychopathy is anxiety-free, undercontrolled, dominant, charming, deceitful, and nonconforming.

Is alexithymia a trauma response?

Traumatization has often been investigated as an environmental factor for alexithymia. To date, traumatization, occurring both in childhood and in adulthood, has been identified as the most important known risk factor for developing alexithymia.

Are people with alexithymia intelligent?

Across three independent, healthy adult samples (Ns = 389, 318, & 273), we examined whether alexithymia was associated with general intelligence. In all three samples, we observed a significant negative association between alexithymia and general intelligence.

Can a marriage survive alexithymia?

Alexithymia, while effectively isolating a person emotionally, does not always prevent them from getting along well enough to end up married. A spouse with alexithymia, though, will have a lot of trouble relating to their partner and expressing how they feel.

How do you comfort someone with 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.

Can people with alexithymia be happy?

It's also important to acknowledge what alexithymic people experience in the context of a romantic relationship. They fall in love, experience emotions, feel happy, and suffer just like anyone else.

Is alexithymia a personality disorder?

Alexithymia is a personality trait characterized by difficulties in identifying and describing feelings and is associated with psychiatric and psychosomatic disorders.

What are alexithymic personality traits?

Alexithymia, or “no words for feelings”, is a personality trait characterized by difficulties in emotion regulation, difficulties in identifying, describing and communicating feelings, difficulties in differentiating feelings from bodily sensations and diminished affect-related fantasy [1], [2].

Can alexithymia be fixed?

To date, there isn't a single individual treatment for alexithymia. The exact treatment approach depends on your overall health needs. For example, if you have depression or anxiety, taking certain medications for these conditions could also help mental health symptoms. Therapies may also be helpful for this condition.

Does alexithymia cause lack of empathy?

In the multivariate analysis, highly alexithymic individuals appeared to report subjective deficits in emotion recognition and regulation as well as increased impulsivity; however, their empathy skills were intact, and even the proneness to experiencing empathic distress with others' suffering was increased among ...

Does alexithymia go away?

Conclusions: Alexithymia and associated high disease burden may be reversible in patients with effective treatment of psoriasis. Proactive recognition of patients who are unable to identify and express their feelings is important.

How does alexithymia develop?

Several subsequent studies suggested that alexithymia might develop in response to overwhelming stress to avoid experiencing agonizing and unbearable emotions[97,98]. During the previous two decades, this “state or trait” issue has been assessed in several studies discussed in the next section.

How do you recover from alexithymia?

Is alexithymia related to narcissism?

Narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by grandiosity, self-admiration needs, and empathy deficits (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). An emerging body of work suggests that narcissism is particularly associated with an alexithymia subtype (i.e., difficulties identifying feelings).

Is there a test for alexithymia?

The TAS-20 assesses three facets of alexithymia: difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings, and externally oriented thinking. Although alexithymia scores are continuous, this measure has an empirically-derived cut score that identifies people who are alexithymic.

What is alexithymia linked to?

Alexithymia is thought to be closely and intrinsically related to depression, suicide and aggression. The relationships between these phenomena also have implications for treatment.