Alexithymia Zimmermann, G. (2010). Alexithymia. In I. B. Weiner & W. E. Craighead (Eds.). The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology (4th ed.) (pp.63-65). Hoboken, NJ : John Wiley & Sons. All individuals experience “emotions” and “feelings”;
However, contemporary specialists of affective sciences all admit that emotions are multifaceted phenomena that entails more or less coordinated changes in the three following components: cognitive/experiential component (subjective conscious experience, such as feeling happy), behavioral/expressive component (characteristic overt expression, such as frowning) and physiological component (autonomic arousal, such an increase heart rate or blood pressure).
If we focus on the cognitive component, individuals differ considerably regarding the degree to which they give attention to their emotional experiences, as well as in their abilities to differentiate between their feelings and share them with others. The alexithymia construct has been proposed to account for this variability. The concept of alexithymia, literally without word for emotions (from the Greek “a” for lack, “lexis” for word, and “thymos” for emotion), is based on observations of psychosomatic patients and was first proposed in the early 1970s by Sifneos (1973).
Alexithymia covers a cluster of cognitive and affective features, mainly characterized by a difficulty in identifying and expressing feelings, a striking paucity of fantasies, a difficulty in distinguishing between feelings and physical sensations and an cognitive style that is utilitarian and externally oriented (closely related to “Pensée opératoire” of the French psychoanalysts Marty & deM’Uzan).
Together, these characteristics are conceptualized as a deficit in the cognitive processing and regulation of emotional states, which provides potential explanations to account for individual differences in vulnerability to various mental health and physical problems.
First studied in classical psychosomatic or somatic disorders, alexithymia is known today as a personality trait normally distributed in the general population; a high level of alexithymia is considered as a risk factor for a variety of common medical and psychiatric disorders.
A leading theory is that the limited cognitive processing and subjective awareness of emotion related to alexithymia are thought to lead to an amplification of the somatic sensations and an increase of emotional response at the physiological level accompanying emotional arousal, thereby producing favorable conditions to the development of disorders (Taylor, Bagby, & Parker, 1997).
On one hand, misinterpretation of the bodily sensations could outcome in functional somatic complaints and conduct to hypochondria or other forms of somatoform disorders.
On the other hand, individuals could alternatively alleviate unpleasant somatic tension through uncontrollable acts, possibly violent (e.g. substance abuse, eating disorders, or antisocial behaviors).
Finally, sustained or hyper-physiological arousal might also contribute to the development of certain types of somatic disorder (e.g. essential hypertension, inflammatory bowel disease or functional gastrointestinal disorders).
The validity of alexithymia has been for a long time mainly supported by correlational and measurement-based research. Some studies have particularly examined the relationships between alexithymia and basic dimensions of personality.
As expected, alexithymia overlaps with various dimensions of the Five-Factor Model (positively correlated with Neuroticism and negatively with Openness to Experience and Extraversion) or the Cloninger’s psychobiological model of personality, as well as other dimensions like external locus of control and irrational beliefs.
Globally, these results indicate that alexithymia represents a unique cluster of traits across the dimensions of personality and is a cognitive state of externally oriented thinking with an emotional instability associated to the inability to cope with stressful situations (Zimmermann, Rossier, Meyer de Stadelhofen, & Gaillard, 2005).
Recently, the validity of alexithymia is getting increasing support from experimental laboratory research. For instance, there is some evidence from psychophysiological studies (e.g. Luminet, Rimé, Bagby & Taylor, 2004) that failure to regulate distressing emotions through cognitive processes might result in prolonged states of sympathetic nervous system arousal that could potentially alter autonomic, endocrine, and/or immune systems.
Referring to neurobiological models, a structural/cerebral deficit was hypothesized in alexithymia as early as in the end of the 1970s. Most of the early research suggest that alexithymia is the result of a dysfunction in: (1) interhemispheric communication or (2) the right cerebral hemisphere.
Lately, evidence from modern brain imaging techniques that allow to observe individuals during the elicitation and processing of emotional states show that reduced activities in the cingulate cortex might play an important role in alexithymic disturbances (Allen, 2005).
In spite of their interests, the neurobiological findings do not provide information about sources of variations in the patterns of neural activity associated with alexithymia. It is reasonable to hypothesize that the etiology of alexithymia is determined by a complex interaction of some genetically induced neurobiological deviations and childhood rearing conditions or other environmental circumstances.
The results from a large population-based sample of twins suggest that alexithymia is primarily influenced by genetic and non-shared environmental factors, and to a lesser extent by shared familial factors (Jørgensen, Zachariae, Skytthe, & Kyvik, 2007). However, there is some evidence in the literature that attachment experiences in early childhood play a central role in the development of emotion regulation and support the idea that attachment quality might play an essential part of the intergenerational transmission of alexithymia.
A few number of clinical and empirical studies have suggested that alexithymia in adulthood is associated with parenting style of the caregivers, climate in the family or experiences of sexual and physical abuse in the childhood. This has been partially confirmed in a recent study investigating the relationship between alexithymia, perceived parenting, physical and sexual abuse in a clinical population (Kooiman, Vellinga, Spinhoven, Draijer, Trijsburg, & Rooijmans, 2004).
However, these associations are fairly modest and does not support the idea that parental care and physical or sexual abuse during childhood exert a strong influence on the development of alexithymia (Kooiman, et al., 2004).
Other factors may be of significance, like other people than parents such as siblings, peers and teachers that also appear important for the emotional development of the child. Clinically, the original observations of the 1970s indicate that subjects with high alexithymia respond poorly to traditional psychotherapies.
Clients with high alexithymia are expected to present difficulties identifying and then describing the nature of their internal experience to the therapist and therefore difficulties responding to the demands of therapy.
Lately, researchers have focused their attention on the impact of pre-treatment alexithymia on the prognosis in psychological or somatic treatments. On the whole, empirical results converge and indicate that alexithymia predicts poorer treatment outcomes. For instance, Ogrodniczuk, Piper and Joyce (2004) show that alexithymia, and particularly the difficulty to identify feelings, is predictive of residual symptoms in patients with major depression who respond to short-term psychotherapy.
Interestingly, findings from another study of the same group suggest that therapist negative reactions to a patient mediates the relationship between alexithymia and outcome (Ogrodniczuk, Piper, & Joyce, 2005).
Finally, although alexithymia has been considered as a relatively stable personality trait, some clinical reports and preliminary empirical results suggest that modified psychotherapeutic techniques (e.g. art therapy, hypnosis, meditation), mostly in group-setting, can contribute to the alteration of the alexithymic characteristics.
More than thirty years after his introduction and despite criticisms, the alexithymia construct is still giving rise to a growing body of research and interest. As it becomes more widely known, it has been examined from different perspectives, including psychology of personality, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, clinical psychology, psychophysiology and neurobiology. Today integrated into the wide field of affective sciences, the prolific literature on the concept of alexithymia add to our understanding of human emotions, emotional regulation and etiology of somatic and psychological disorder
Faceless написав:....... Та годі, "щас не нужен", ніби колись був менший портт на ахінею. Сьогодні "слідство ведуть екстрасенси", в 90х були назети спід інфо і подібні бульвари гордона, за совку газета правда генерувала ахінею згідно лінії партії, до того церковні байки від скажених бабок.
Газета "Правда" могла односторонне трактовать какие-то политические события, но антинаучный бред она не пропагандировала. Было, правда, с генетикой и кибернетикой. Но давно и сравнительно недолго. И тоже, к сожалению, с помощью некоторых учёных, которые сумели воспользоваться/получить поддержку своих взглядов политиками. И уж точно нельзя сравнить то, что пропагандировала газета "Правда" с тем, что было позже. И точно невозможно себе представить при советах "заряжание воды" по телевизору. Только не надо рассказывать, что это началось ещё в Союзе. 1989 это, действительно, ещё Союз, но уже период полного разложения. Советские передачи - "Очевидное-невероятное" с Капицей, Клуб кинопутешественников со Шнейдеровым, а потом Сенкевичем. Посмотрите, что пишет Капица о закрытии программы на "Первом канале" в 1995:
— «Первый канал» требовал, чтобы я, во-первых, громил советскую науку и, во-вторых, не возражал против всякой лженауки. Я отказался категорически. Тогда меня выгнали оттуда. — Просто так поставили вопрос ребром? — Именно так. Циничными они были. — Молодёжь, которая пришла на телевидение? — Да, новое руководство. Какие у них были политические установки, можно видеть по результатам их деятельности. Это интеллектуальный разгром России. Иначе я характеризовать их деятельность не могу
Добре, що академіка Лисенка ви самі згадали. Про "правду" (і інші радянські змі) я згадав в контексті ненаукової фантастики в області політики, економіки, історії і т п. Також, якщо все так було потужно в совку з научпопом, як ви поясните, що от буквально на межі совка радянський народ так жадібно пристав на оте заряджання води від Чумака, на сеанси кашпіровського? Можна ще й ммм згадати? Все критичне мислення, освіта, просвітницька робота от разом випарувалися? А може їх таки й не було, і Капицю з Ландау слухали і читали долі відсотка населення?
Alexithymia Zimmermann, G. (2010). Alexithymia. In I. B. Weiner & W. E. Craighead (Eds.). The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology (4th ed.) (pp.63-65). Hoboken, NJ : John Wiley & Sons. All individuals experience “emotions” and “feelings”;
However, contemporary specialists of affective sciences all admit that emotions are multifaceted phenomena that entails more or less coordinated changes in the three following components: cognitive/experiential component (subjective conscious experience, such as feeling happy), behavioral/expressive component (characteristic overt expression, such as frowning) and physiological component (autonomic arousal, such an increase heart rate or blood pressure).
If we focus on the cognitive component, individuals differ considerably regarding the degree to which they give attention to their emotional experiences, as well as in their abilities to differentiate between their feelings and share them with others. The alexithymia construct has been proposed to account for this variability. The concept of alexithymia, literally without word for emotions (from the Greek “a” for lack, “lexis” for word, and “thymos” for emotion), is based on observations of psychosomatic patients and was first proposed in the early 1970s by Sifneos (1973).
Alexithymia covers a cluster of cognitive and affective features, mainly characterized by a difficulty in identifying and expressing feelings, a striking paucity of fantasies, a difficulty in distinguishing between feelings and physical sensations and an cognitive style that is utilitarian and externally oriented (closely related to “Pensée opératoire” of the French psychoanalysts Marty & deM’Uzan).
Together, these characteristics are conceptualized as a deficit in the cognitive processing and regulation of emotional states, which provides potential explanations to account for individual differences in vulnerability to various mental health and physical problems.
First studied in classical psychosomatic or somatic disorders, alexithymia is known today as a personality trait normally distributed in the general population; a high level of alexithymia is considered as a risk factor for a variety of common medical and psychiatric disorders.
A leading theory is that the limited cognitive processing and subjective awareness of emotion related to alexithymia are thought to lead to an amplification of the somatic sensations and an increase of emotional response at the physiological level accompanying emotional arousal, thereby producing favorable conditions to the development of disorders (Taylor, Bagby, & Parker, 1997).
On one hand, misinterpretation of the bodily sensations could outcome in functional somatic complaints and conduct to hypochondria or other forms of somatoform disorders.
On the other hand, individuals could alternatively alleviate unpleasant somatic tension through uncontrollable acts, possibly violent (e.g. substance abuse, eating disorders, or antisocial behaviors).
Finally, sustained or hyper-physiological arousal might also contribute to the development of certain types of somatic disorder (e.g. essential hypertension, inflammatory bowel disease or functional gastrointestinal disorders).
The validity of alexithymia has been for a long time mainly supported by correlational and measurement-based research. Some studies have particularly examined the relationships between alexithymia and basic dimensions of personality.
As expected, alexithymia overlaps with various dimensions of the Five-Factor Model (positively correlated with Neuroticism and negatively with Openness to Experience and Extraversion) or the Cloninger’s psychobiological model of personality, as well as other dimensions like external locus of control and irrational beliefs.
Globally, these results indicate that alexithymia represents a unique cluster of traits across the dimensions of personality and is a cognitive state of externally oriented thinking with an emotional instability associated to the inability to cope with stressful situations (Zimmermann, Rossier, Meyer de Stadelhofen, & Gaillard, 2005).
Recently, the validity of alexithymia is getting increasing support from experimental laboratory research. For instance, there is some evidence from psychophysiological studies (e.g. Luminet, Rimé, Bagby & Taylor, 2004) that failure to regulate distressing emotions through cognitive processes might result in prolonged states of sympathetic nervous system arousal that could potentially alter autonomic, endocrine, and/or immune systems.
Referring to neurobiological models, a structural/cerebral deficit was hypothesized in alexithymia as early as in the end of the 1970s. Most of the early research suggest that alexithymia is the result of a dysfunction in: (1) interhemispheric communication or (2) the right cerebral hemisphere.
Lately, evidence from modern brain imaging techniques that allow to observe individuals during the elicitation and processing of emotional states show that reduced activities in the cingulate cortex might play an important role in alexithymic disturbances (Allen, 2005).
In spite of their interests, the neurobiological findings do not provide information about sources of variations in the patterns of neural activity associated with alexithymia. It is reasonable to hypothesize that the etiology of alexithymia is determined by a complex interaction of some genetically induced neurobiological deviations and childhood rearing conditions or other environmental circumstances.
The results from a large population-based sample of twins suggest that alexithymia is primarily influenced by genetic and non-shared environmental factors, and to a lesser extent by shared familial factors (Jørgensen, Zachariae, Skytthe, & Kyvik, 2007). However, there is some evidence in the literature that attachment experiences in early childhood play a central role in the development of emotion regulation and support the idea that attachment quality might play an essential part of the intergenerational transmission of alexithymia.
A few number of clinical and empirical studies have suggested that alexithymia in adulthood is associated with parenting style of the caregivers, climate in the family or experiences of sexual and physical abuse in the childhood. This has been partially confirmed in a recent study investigating the relationship between alexithymia, perceived parenting, physical and sexual abuse in a clinical population (Kooiman, Vellinga, Spinhoven, Draijer, Trijsburg, & Rooijmans, 2004).
However, these associations are fairly modest and does not support the idea that parental care and physical or sexual abuse during childhood exert a strong influence on the development of alexithymia (Kooiman, et al., 2004).
Other factors may be of significance, like other people than parents such as siblings, peers and teachers that also appear important for the emotional development of the child. Clinically, the original observations of the 1970s indicate that subjects with high alexithymia respond poorly to traditional psychotherapies.
Clients with high alexithymia are expected to present difficulties identifying and then describing the nature of their internal experience to the therapist and therefore difficulties responding to the demands of therapy.
Lately, researchers have focused their attention on the impact of pre-treatment alexithymia on the prognosis in psychological or somatic treatments. On the whole, empirical results converge and indicate that alexithymia predicts poorer treatment outcomes. For instance, Ogrodniczuk, Piper and Joyce (2004) show that alexithymia, and particularly the difficulty to identify feelings, is predictive of residual symptoms in patients with major depression who respond to short-term psychotherapy.
Interestingly, findings from another study of the same group suggest that therapist negative reactions to a patient mediates the relationship between alexithymia and outcome (Ogrodniczuk, Piper, & Joyce, 2005).
Finally, although alexithymia has been considered as a relatively stable personality trait, some clinical reports and preliminary empirical results suggest that modified psychotherapeutic techniques (e.g. art therapy, hypnosis, meditation), mostly in group-setting, can contribute to the alteration of the alexithymic characteristics.
More than thirty years after his introduction and despite criticisms, the alexithymia construct is still giving rise to a growing body of research and interest. As it becomes more widely known, it has been examined from different perspectives, including psychology of personality, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, clinical psychology, psychophysiology and neurobiology. Today integrated into the wide field of affective sciences, the prolific literature on the concept of alexithymia add to our understanding of human emotions, emotional regulation and etiology of somatic and psychological disorder
Успіх написав:(не)Люди он☝️ потирають руки, щоб ти, я, чи їх сусід "потрапив під колеса"...
тю удивил. когда у человека не остаётся своих ценностей, он радуется тому, шо у соседа корова сдохла. терять то ему нечего). франта тоже разрывает от радости, что в стране война и миллионы беженцев выехали, каждый день об этом напоминает. Вдруг забудем?
Востаннє редагувалось Wirująświatła в П'ят 16 тра, 2025 21:38, всього редагувалось 1 раз.