Understanding Alexithymia: When Emotions Feel Out of Reach

Julie N
4 days ago
3 min read

What is Alexithymia?

Alexithymia is a term used to describe difficulty in identifying, understanding, and expressing emotions. People with alexithymia often struggle to put their feelings into words, making it challenging to process emotions or communicate them to others.

While alexithymia is not a mental health condition, it is commonly associated with Autism, ADHD, AuDHD, PTSD, depression, and anxiety. It can impact relationships, self-awareness, and mental well-being, often leaving people feeling disconnected or misunderstood.

What Does Alexithymia Feel Like?

People with alexithymia might:

Struggle to name or describe what they are feeling.
Have physical sensations (such as tightness in the chest or stomach discomfort) but not recognise them as emotions.
Experience emotions in a vague or confusing way, such as feeling "off" but not knowing why.
Find it hard to differentiate between different emotions, like anger and frustration or sadness and exhaustion.
Feel disconnected from their own emotional experiences or those of others.

It’s important to note that alexithymia does not mean a person lacks emotions—rather, they have difficulty recognising and expressing them.

Alexithymia and Neurodivergence

Alexithymia is common in neurodivergent individuals, particularly those with Autism and ADHD. For autistic people, sensory overload and social communication differences can contribute to difficulties processing emotions. For ADHDers, fast-changing emotions and executive function challenges can make it hard to pause and reflect on what they’re feeling.

Alexithymia can also develop in response to trauma. If someone has repeatedly experienced distressing emotions without support or understanding, they may have learned to disconnect from their feelings as a protective mechanism.

How Does Alexithymia Affect Daily Life?

Alexithymia can influence many areas of life, including:

Relationships

Difficulty communicating feelings can lead to misunderstandings with friends, family, or partners.
Others may misinterpret emotional detachment as indifference or coldness.
It can be hard to offer emotional support to others when their feelings are difficult to interpret.

Mental Health

Struggling to process emotions can lead to anxiety, depression, or stress-related symptoms.
Emotions may build up over time, leading to sudden emotional outbursts or shutdowns.
Difficulty recognising emotions can make self-care and emotional regulation challenging.

Decision-Making

Many decisions involve emotional input—when this is missing, choices can feel overwhelming or uncertain.
People with alexithymia may rely on logic alone to make decisions, sometimes overlooking personal needs or values.

Can Therapy Help with Alexithymia?

While alexithymia itself is not a condition that needs to be "fixed," therapy can offer tools and strategies to help people better understand and express their emotions. As a Gestalt therapist, I work with clients to explore their emotions through body awareness, present-moment experiences, and holistic self-understanding.

Gestalt therapy can be particularly helpful for alexithymia because it focuses on connecting with bodily sensations rather than just verbal processing. Since many people with alexithymia experience emotions as physical sensations first, a Gestalt approach can help bridge the gap between what is felt and what is understood.

Some ways therapy can help include:

Exploring bodily sensations to recognise emotional signals.
Bringing awareness to present-moment experiences to deepen emotional understanding.
Using creative and experiential techniques (such as role-play or guided imagery) to access emotions in non-verbal ways.
Supporting alternative communication styles, including using metaphors, sensory descriptions, or movement instead of traditional emotional language.

If you or someone you know struggles with alexithymia, it’s important to remember that there is no right or wrong way to experience emotions. With understanding and the right support, it is possible to develop a stronger connection to emotions in a way that feels natural and accessible.