Alexithymia is more than a groovy word. In fact, it refers to a personality construct which makes it difficult for you to identify and describe your inner feelings. In other words, people who score high in alexithymia have difficulty understanding what emotions they feel. It will be difficult for them to describe their feelings to others. Additionally, these people also have difficulty understanding and interpreting the emotions of others, leading to a lack of empathy. Moreover, this construct is associated with a wide range of psychopathologies and is believed to be present in about 10% of the population, appearing most commonly in males (hence the stereotype that men just “don’t understand”). It can be referred to as an “emotional blindness”. Here is an informative blog post from the scientific American on the topic: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/2014/04/03/the-emotional-blindness-of-alexithymia/

Are you high in alexithymia? Before you continue, you can take this free online test and see for yourself. Alexithymia is measured with the Toronto Alexithymia Scale, a 20 item scale which measures the construct of alexithymia. Typically, people who score between 52 and 60 have possible alexithymia, and scores 61 and over indicate alexithymia (Bagby, Parker & Taylor 1994). The scale demostrates good internal consistency (a=.81) and adequate validity.

If you do score high on alexithymia — you may find it soothing to finally have a reason to explain your emotional bluntness. The article linked above suggests some ways to cope with alexithymia, including keeping a journal, reading novels and psychotherapy, and I suggest reading it if the topic piqued your interest. Human beings are social beings, and taking action to better understand your own emotions will also help you understand the emotions of others better, enhancing the quality of your relationships.

As you may imagine, alexithymia is a challenge to talk-directed therapy, which requires the patient to demonstrate a great deal of introspection in order to understand, and modify, their inner feelings. We owe a great deal of respect and deference to the talented clinicians who are able to make progress with the most difficult of patients.

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Bagby, R. M., Parker, J. D. A. & Taylor, G. J. (1994). The twenty-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale-I. Item selection and cross-validation of the factor structure. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 38, 23-32.” Information quoted from Ciarrochi, J. & Bilich, L. (2006). Process measures of potential relevance to ACT. Unpublished manuscript, University of Wollongong, Australia.