http://www.damninteresting.com/the-emotional-bankruptcy-of-alexithymia/
Study
It is consciously clear in the human mind where each of us stand in terms of traditional intelligence. Facts, logic, and comprehension are all things humans are primed to learn. Emotional intelligence, however, rarely receives the same attention. According to Dr. Ross Buck of Psychology Today, understanding and communicating one's emotions can be just as critical.
The term alexithymia is defined as "a lack of effective vocabulary for recognizing and labeling feelings and desires." Dr. Buck engineered a study that looked at the components behind this trait, involving a two sided emotion-perception approach. The "sender" of the emotion would be shown a series of color slides that were coded as "familiar-people, scenic, unpleasant, and unusual," and the "receiver" would watch these emotions play out in the sender on a screen and would press a button at points they thought were meaningful (a clear expression of emotion). At these meaningful points in the sender's portion, physiological measures were noted in the sender such as skin conductance deflections, heart rate, and blood pressure. Through these measures, the findings revolved around amount of emotional display, accuracy of emotion communication, and physiological arousal.
As expected, senders with low emotional display activity tended to struggle with overall emotion communication. The physiological response was high, however, in these senders, perhaps indicating a nervous, "tensing up" effect. Adversely, senders with high emotional display activity showed strength in overall emotion communication and minimal physiological arousal.
However, Dr. Buck goes on to explain that, in clinical trials, too much emotional display may in fact be counter-intuitive. For those who may be over-emotional or have behavioral problems, accurate emotions may be difficult to formulate when given certain cues. These people may over-think or just overreact to these stimuli, resulting in faulty emotion communication. Below is Dr. Buck's scale describing alexithymia:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/spontaneous-emotion/201006/emotional-expression-emotional-communication-and-alexithymia
There are those who have under-expressive emotional display activity (the left side of the graph) who also have high nerves and tense physiological tendencies, this portion of the graph characterizes those with hypoexpressive alexithymia.
There are those who have over-expressive emotional display activity (the right side of the graph) who tend to have lower physiological tendencies, this portion characterizes those with hyperexpressive alexithymia.
The middle portion of the graph (the top of the bell curve) show those who hold balance. Their emotional expression is neither too much nor too little and their response is average in regards to physiology. This is the desired demographic because with this balance, there is accurate emotional communication and perception which, consequently, means their emotional intelligence is very strong.
Reaction
As difficult as it may be to look at emotion objectively, this study came to an accurate conclusion. Conveying emotion is a subtle art. Some people get their point across accurately through a combination of verbal communication, facial expressions, body language, and other nonverbal cues; a constant balancing act that takes years to master. Some people struggle with it. As Dr. Buck describes, some may just have problems communicating emotion because of their lack of emotion itself. Others have problems communicating because they just have too much to express. Like a log jam at the lumber mill, there are only so many emotions that can be go out at once. For one to express accurate emotions that are congruent to what the sender is feeling, Dr. Buck talks about balance.
A lot in the field of psychology comes down to the terms: balance, stability, and moderation. Emotion is no different. A strong emotional understanding comes with moderate expression and communication. The definition of "moderate" depends largely on the individual's personal preferences and environment (making "subjective" another key psychological term). This uniform emotional equation is not meant to diagnose. Alexithymia is classified as a personality trait, not a disorder, but its role in relationships and marriage cannot be ignored. In any intimate relationship where emotion communication is crucial, alexithymia poses a problem. Without the ability to accurately express one's emotions, an interpersonal relationship will suffer and may result in both partners feeling isolated.
-Ryan Scanlon
Works Used:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/spontaneous-emotion/201006/emotional-expression-emotional-communication-and-alexithymia
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