Alexithymia, translated as “alexithymia.” Even though you are under a lot of stress, you can’t recognize your painful feelings or painful feelings, and you don’t understand your own emotions. This may be due to alexithymia. Learn about the characteristics and characteristics of alexithymia, which can lead to mental and physical illness, and how to deal with them.
What is Alexithymia
Even though you are busy every day and must be under a lot of stress, you can’t clearly recognize your painful feelings and painful feelings. “Aren’t you tired?” “You look like you’re trying too hard.” If you have difficulty understanding your own emotions like this, you may be suffering from alexithymia .
Alexithymia is a concept proposed by American psychiatrist Siphneos, and refers to a state in which one is unable to recognize one’s own emotions and finds it difficult to express one’s emotions through words or behavior. It is also called aleemopathy or anemotional expressionism.
People with alexithymia have difficulty recognizing painful emotions even in situations of excessive stress, so they may continue to push themselves to the limit without trying to improve the situation or asking for help.
As a result, the body becomes overburdened, causing stomach ulcers, ulcerative colitis, angina pectoris, bronchial asthma, atopic dermatitis, and other “ psychosomatic diseases ” (physical diseases that develop under the influence of psychological factors). may develop.
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Unable to be aware of stress, mental pain turns into a “physical disease”…
When people develop psychosomatic disorders, they often go to a gastroenterologist when they feel a stomach ache, or see a respiratory specialist when they have a persistent cough. However, symptoms do not improve unless the stress that causes them is alleviated, and even if symptomatic treatment improves temporarily, it often worsens again.
Under these circumstances, some doctors recommend that they see a psychiatrist. So let’s think about how we should approach alexithymia.
How to overcome, treat, and approach alexithymia
First of all, it is important to relax the mental and physical tensionBecause people with alexithymia are less aware of their emotions, they can be difficult to treat in psychosomatic medicine.
When a doctor or counselor asks me what’s bothering me, I can’t answer because I don’t know how I feel. I state the facts, but I can’t answer the question, “How did you feel at that time?” A trusting relationship cannot be established with the therapist. This is because such situations are likely to occur.
Therefore, methods of relieving stress by approaching the body are often adopted. For example, self-hypnosis methods such as autogenic training and relaxation methods such as breathing methods are used to relieve mental and physical tension. Continuing with these methods can relieve stress and ease symptoms.
Alexithymia has different causes for different people. If some kind of trauma is affecting you, a long-term healing approach may be useful.
In any case, if no abnormalities are found in the physical examination and symptoms do not improve for a long time even with symptomatic treatment, there is a possibility of alexithymia. One option is to consult a psychiatrist or psychological counselor.