Treatment For Alexithymia?

[Kazz]

Hi

I have been diagnosed with alexithymia and can't find any information on how to deal with, work with, improove my diagnosis.

What is the treatment........is there any????? :(

[successful_workthru]

I thought I had alexithymia because I could not articulate how I felt.

I don't personally know what treatment there is for it, but suggest that you could ask the person who diagnosed you.

Sorry am not much help, but hoping someone else will come along and give some more useful info to you.

[hummm_mabbe]

Hello Kazz

As you probably know, alexithymia is the inability to understand and comprehend the feelings of emotion. It can be a primary condition, or can exist as a result of, or in conjunction with, other problems such as depression.

The opposite of being alexithymic is being in touch with feelings, and being able to name, describe, understand and act on them. For this reason, the 'treatment' for alexithymia is coming to be able to do all of these things.

First off, there is no drug or rapid-acting psychotherapy. Alexithymia is not like a cold, its not an illness you catch - it is almost like a failure (but not your fault) to learn core emotional skills at the time it was meant to happen, and this can happen for a lot of different reasons. For a lot of people, emotions are too overwhelming, or they are not helped to handle the sensations from their bodies. They may even be brought up to feel that feelings are bad or only lead to bad consequences, and so the person learns early to try to shut them away. They may even be phobic of strong feelings and belive its possible to never feel bad sensations, if only they could try hard enough. There may also be a biological or genetic component, depending on what sources you read.

The truth is, emotions and their bodily sensations are normal (Those who have depression or anxiety may experiecne a greater amount of these bad feelings, and especially if the person is emotions-phobic, this can add to the problem if the person insists they "shouldnt feel this way"). The hard part is first accepting that your body produces discomfort, and that you cannot make it go away. Rather you have to come to know it and understand it so that you can act on it effectively, experience less intensity and duration, and not be 'driven by' the sensations.

The main way this can be accomplished is through psychotherapy, but particularly through a type of meditation called mindfulness meditation - an approach that is integrated with a lot of current psychotherapies and has a lot of good research behind it. It encourages simple, direct and ongoing awareness. Through this awareness, over a period of months and years, you can come to know the feelings inside and begin to make connections between what is happening, and what you are feeling, and especially being able to tell the subtle differences between feelings that can seem very similar (for example, some people can get confused between feeling lonely, and feeling bored, or perhaps feeling depressed or angry and feeling hungry). A therapist can help you try to make sense of emotion by encouraging you to talk about and express feeling, which has something of a circular effect on your own relationship to your emotions as you continue to do this.

Another element is learning to tolerate strong and unpleasant emotions and bodily sensations, something which mindfulness can be very useful for. You may also like to look into Distress Tolerance approaches used by DBT (Dialectical Behavioural Therapy).

Only way forward is to choose an approach or method, pick it up and start using it. Dont expect any quick effects, just try to keep coming back to it. Slowly you will see results and changes. If you want to know more about mindfulness, its best to read a book on it as its a huge and subtly complex subject. A good book to start with is The Mindful Way Through Depression. Even if you do not feel depressed, its a good book to help you begin to learn the way of mindfulness. It will be frustratingly slow, but you are effectively doing something that would have heppened many years ago, and over a period of some time. You are effectively getting to know yourself from scratch, so try to treat yourself like meeting a new friend or someone you care about - with acceptance of what you find.

Good luck

Ross

[Kazz]

hallo ross

thank you for your reply that has given me things to think about. There is alot for me to process and i will take my time to do this.

[hummm_mabbe]

You're welcome

Process away

Ross

[Kazz]

Hi hummm_mabbe,

Thank you for your reply although it was some time ago!

I couldn't take anything in at the time of reading you brilliant post, I have to confess I actually had to get my OCT to write a quick repy(above) acknowledging I had read it so I didn't seem ungreatful . Wasn't in a very good place with it all at the time, sorry.

You really know what it's all about and how it makes you feel and I am so thankful that you posted....I am not entirely on my own

I actually came across this site again tonight looking for some help and support as I am feeling crappy.......LOW! I don't know why, just been feeling a bit low for a few days, just feel SAD Probably need to go to another forum really

Anyway, thanks again for replying.