MENTALIZATION SKILLS FOR MENTAL HEALTH
How a Fear of Sadness Prevented My Friend from Saying Goodbye to Her Dying Brother
The interplay of affect phobia, alexithymia and somatic symptom disorder
Republished from www.centerforappliedtheoryofmind.com
Several years ago, I learned from my mother that the brother of one of my best friends was terminally ill. I didn’t know the brother very well, but my friend and I had always been very close, so I was a little surprised that I hadn’t received the news from her. I assumed that she must have been busy dealing with her brother’s difficult situation. When I mentioned that I hadn’t heard anything from my friend, my mother looked at me pensively, as if she were trying to find the right words, before disclosing that something seemed to be off about the way my friend had been behaving since learning about her brother’s illness. My mother also noted that although the health of my friend’s brother was declining rapidly, my friend had become virtually unapproachable by her own family members, including her dying brother. “Maybe give her a call,” my mother proposed.
When I got home later that day, I tried to contact my friend by phone, but she didn’t answer or return my call. After waiting a few days, I finally sent her an email in which I offered my…
