Is alexithymia a form of autism?

Alexithymia is a personality construct characterized by altered emotional awareness which has been gaining diagnostic prevalence in a range of neuropsychiatric disorders, with notably high rates of overlap with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, the nature of its role in ASD symptomatology remains elusive.

Is alexithymia associated with autism?

Alexithymia may be associated with additional difficulties for autistic people, with this same adolescent study finding that individuals with both ASD and alexithymia experienced higher levels of anxiety and emotional difficulties compared to those with ASD only [23].

Can you have alexithymia without being autistic?

Alexithymia is neither necessary nor sufficient for an autism diagnosis, nor is it universal among autistic individuals. Conversely, many individuals show severe degrees of alexithymia without demonstrating autistic symptoms.

Is alexithymia a spectrum?

Alexithymia, Not Autism Spectrum Disorder, Predicts Perceived Attachment to Parents in School-Age Children. Alexithymia is defined as a limited ability in the cognitive processing of emotions.

What type of disorder is alexithymia?

Alexithymia is a broad term to describe problems with feeling emotions. In fact, this Greek term used in Freudian psychodynamic theories loosely translates to “no words for emotion.” While the condition is not well-known, it's estimated that 1 in 10 people has it.

Ask an Autistic #27 - What is Alexithymia?

Is alexithymia a disability?

Researchers describe alexithymia as a construct relating to a difficulty experiencing, identifying, and expressing emotions. It is not a clinical diagnosis, and mental health professionals do not consider it a disorder, although it may occur alongside some mental health conditions.

What is the difference between alexithymia and autism?

This distinction is relevant in order to understand the relationship between alexithymia and ASD since the difficulty in recognizing and distinguishing physiological activations is a trait typical of alexithymia while atypical forms of sensory perception are characteristic of people suffering from ASD.

What is similar to alexithymia?

Like Alexithymia, Asperger's disorder is also characterised by core disturbances in speech and language and social relationships.

Can alexithymia be genetic?

Results: Genetic factors accounted for 42% of individual differences in alexithymia. Unshared environmental factors explained the remaining proportion of variance. There was a substantial (0.65) genetic correlation between alexithymia and depression.

How do I know if I have alexithymia?

People who experience the effects of alexithymia might notice some different things such as: A lack of impulse control. Violent or disruptive outbursts. Indifference towards other people.

What percentage of autistics have alexithymia?

1 in 5 autistic people have alexithymia. People who have alexithymia may have have trouble identifying, understanding and describing emotions. They may also struggle to show or feel emotions that are seen as socially appropriate, such as happiness on a joyous occasion.

Is alexithymia psychopathic?

Alexithymia was associated with problems with affective resonance independently of psychopathic traits, suggesting that different component processes (reduced tendency to feel what others feel and reduced ability to identify and describe feelings) comprise affective resonance.

Does alexithymia get worse with age?

For instance, one large-scale study found that the prevalence of alexithymia increased with age, with the highest TAS scores obtained by participants aged 85 years and older (Mattila et al., 2006).

Can alexithymia cry?

They include: difficulty distinguishing somatic feelings in the body, a show of less distress when others are in pain, confusion of their sensations or emotions, few dreams or dreams that are very logical and rational, chronic outbursts (flooding) of crying or rage with no apparent cause, and confusion when asked about ...

Is alexithymia a neurological disorder?

Results: Alexithymia seems to be a common feature of neurological disease, with most evidence available for patients with traumatic brain injury, stroke, and epilepsy.

Can a child have alexithymia?

Alexithymia is a subclinical trait involving difficulty describing and identifying emotions. It is common in a number of psychiatric conditions. Alexithymia in children is sometimes measured by parent report and sometimes by child self-report, but it is not yet known how closely related the two measures are.

Can you be born with alexithymia?

Alexithymia can occur at two levels — as a primary trait and as a secondary state. Primary Alexithymia implies that the individual is born with a genetic abnormality that hampers the ability to feel and express emotions and empathize.

How do you deal with alexithymia?

Treatments for Alexithymia

Don't punish, shame or mock their emotional unresponsiveness. Instead, practice patience. Consider explaining your needs in briefer terms, “I'm feeling tired, I don't want to cook. Let's get take-out for dinner.” Or helping them label emotions, “You look angry.

What is being emotionless called?

Nonmedical terms describing similar conditions include emotionless and impassive. People with the condition are called alexithymics or alexithymiacs.

Can alexithymia be improved?

(2011) found that high-alexithymic individuals seeking a treatment are as open as low-alexithymic individuals to receiving psychotherapy. Moreover, several studies have shown that alexithymia scores may decline during psychotherapy and such changes are correlated with improvement in therapy.

What is narcissistic alexithymia?

Concept description. In his New York Times column of 11 October 2016, David Brooks wrote that “Trump continues to display the symptoms of narcissistic alexithymia, the inability to understand or describe the emotions in the self. Unable to know themselves, sufferers are unable to understand, relate or attach to others. ...

Is psychopathy a form of autism?

The primary distinction between a person with autism versus psychopathy is that a person with autistic traits is often unaware that their behavior is aversive to other people while a person with psychopathic traits is typically can articulate that their behaviors inflict pain or discomfort on other people they but ...

What is the opposite of alexithymia?

The opposite of alexithymia is emotional literacy. Again, with some people, emotional literacy develops naturally.

What is male alexithymia?

Normative Male Alexithymia is a very clinical sounding term that describes when men have tremendous difficulty putting their emotional experience into words. This can often put relationships on the ice because generally women need to talk about emotions to feel a connection, and men often “just can't go there.”

When was alexithymia discovered?

This unusual psychological concept was what in 1972 Sifneos coined as 'alexithymia', which is formed by the roots of several Greek words, and literally means “lack of words for emotion” (18–20).