Let’s Talk About Alexithymia …

Alexi … what? you may ask. I get it. It’s not a phrase used in everyday talks. I am a therapist and I did not know the word until I read the book The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk. A decent description of Alexithymia is the inability for one to identify and describe or express one’s emotions. In other words, the head and heart are not connected. This is not to say that one does not experience emotion, but that they are not connected to their emotions and do not know how to identify or express it. It is common that one with Alexithymia issues will express most emotions as frustration or anger.

Imagine a toddler who does not know how to identify or express what they are feeling and most everything comes out as a tantrum or fit. Alexithymia also disconnects an individual from others emotions leaving them to appear aloof or non-empathetic to others needs and emotions. Or this may lead to such a discomfort when someone else feels emotions that an individual with Alexithymia may go out of their way to avoid the discomfort of being in the orbit of someone else’s emotions. This may lead to avoidance or Codependent behaviors because they have no way of processing their own discomfort.

Even though we do not know the exact cause of Alexithymia I do believe there are several factors that affect how one connect to and expresses their feelings. Clearly childhood trauma and abuse are factors into Alexithymia. However, I believe it can be even more subtle than dramatic traumas. As a child is growing, their brain is growing and developing as well. Children are often referred to as sponges due to their absorption of everything around them. They also look at their parents as gods – especially dads. My dad is smarter, stronger, faster than your dad. My dad can eat 5 cheeseburgers. Kids even elevate their dads to super human status. I never heard or said, “My mom is stronger than your mom.” when I was growing up. Of course dads are superheroes. We teach our kids how to play sports, teach them to clean and do chores, how to be polite, how to go potty, we rough house and wrestle, and we have the ability to pick our kids up and throw them in the air so high it makes them laugh with anxiety. We are the ones who put the 6 year old on our lap and let them drive the car down the street or through the parking lot. We are cool and kids want to be with or be like their dads. But how do we teach them emotions? (By the way, not to say there are not kick ass moms out there – just trying to illustrate the role of dads.)

Something that I believe Carl Jung said is that one of the best things a parent can do is allow the child to see the parent’s shadow side. This means for the kid to see the parent be sad, hurt or angry in a healthy way as it gives the child validation and permission to their own feelings and experiences. Jung also noted that even in child rearing it is often good for parents to react emotionally and not with cool superiority to the child’s behavior. Children will often irritate their parents just to make them show emotion.

In other words, it is better for a parent to allow the kid to see their feelings – you know, those things we don’t want anyone to see us have because what it might mean about us. It is important to show and express sadness and hurt and anger rather than cool headed or disconnected. Children learn emotional expression from watching parents, and what a parent does gives the child permission to do the same themselves. If a family dog passes away and dad cries, it gives the kids permission to have their emotions. If dad does not cry, the child will probably still cry, but may try to hold it back or even create an internal critic judging himself or herself for having the emotion.

As parents, we can reinforce the child’s internal critic as we may also judge the child’s emotions. Even the most caring and nurturing parents can invalidate their child’s feelings. If you are at a friend’s house or out to eat and your kid falls or bumps their head they will start to cry (they will first look to see if you are looking). This crying can spark our own internal critic about ourselves as parents or about the kid’s emotions. And of course, the kid is going to cry to the level they could be heard at a Who concert. This again sparking the internal critic in the parent to feel like a parent who can’t control their kid or just feeling embarrassed and assuming that everyone else is uncomfortable. So the typically loving and nurturing parent reverts to “you’re okay, get up.” Now, I’ve said it myself, and I hear it all the time and it saddens me every time. The other week I saw a kid trip getting off of the escalator at the mall. He scooted out of the way and sat there and wept rather quietly. I would not have noticed until I heard his mom, “Get up. You’re a boy – don’t cry.” If reinforced enough not to have emotion – a kid wild will suffer in adulthood in relationships and personal life all due to their emotional immaturity.

Now this is not to say that kids should be allowed to scream and throw tantrums as a way of letting them have their feelings. No, not at all – we have to teach them to regulate emotions and teach them how to express emotions in a healthy way. And the number one way kids learn from their superheroes is by watching them.