There’s also a new book out about alexithymia called ‘Emotionally Dumb: An Overview of Alexithymia’ which is reviewed and can be purchased here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6392761-emotionally-dumb-an-overview-of-alexithymia

Howzat

Can you imagine roleplaying an Alexithymic…? The mind boggles.

I’m whatever the opposite of Alexithymia is.

Such fun. [/sarcasm]

THE ALEXITHYMIA EXCHANGE at: http://groups.msn.com/ALEXITHYMIAEXCHANGE/_whatsnew.msnw

Both people with alexithymia, or if you know someone who has it, or for people who are researching or ‘just curious’ about it, all welcome to join in the discussion.

The bigger conundrum lies in an alexithymic individual’s demonstrable ability to occasionally use accurate words for feelings, ie. to get their words for emotions right (!) such as when they cry and might intellectually be able to designate what they observe as “sadness,” i.e., there are sometimes words for feelings, although artificially applied. The bigger issue may be the alexithymic individual’s inability to imagine, “to picture” one’s emotions and the emotional situation one is in, which ability would make for a *personal* intuition and a subsequent personal experience of one’s emotions rather than a purely noetic (purely intellectual) inference by way of dispassionate scientistic observation. It is this emotional-picturing mechanism, or more accurately the lack thereof, which lays at the core of alexithymia. As described by the recognised alexithymia construct there is “CONSTRICTED IMAGINAL PROCESSES” involved, suggesting that maybe a Greek term along the lines: no-images-for-emotions may have been more appropriate for this syndrome? Not that it matters.

Here is a little more about the alexithymic deficit in imagining: http://alexithymiadepot.blogspot.com/

Buck