"They give the impression that they are different and out of place. They seem to come from a completely different world, but live in a society dominated by emotions."
wen | Shi Zhanhua Editor | Lin Yixin
"Do you love her?" "No, I haven't thought about it for a moment, I don't understand that kind of feeling."
At first glance, most people’s sixth sense might identify it as one of the "scumbag quotations": Is there anyone in this world? Don't you understand the emotion of "love"?
Actually, this is a classic scene in the hit Korean drama "The Flower of Evil". The two brothers and sisters reunited after more than ten years of absence. The sister found that the younger brother suddenly became gentle when he talked about his wife and daughter. The impression of the younger brother's personality is very different, so she couldn't help but test his brother's change-she knew that for a younger brother who had an emotional disorder since childhood, it is not easy to fall in love with someone.
Last night, the hit Korean drama "The Flower of Evil" finally came to an end, attracting hundreds of thousands of viewers waiting for the live broadcast in front of the screen. Since its launch in July, its exciting and reversing plots have continued to affect the audience, and have frequently appeared on the Weibo hot search list, setting off intense plot discussions. In the play, the male protagonist Du Hyun, played by Lee Jun-ki, accepts the character set due to emotional disorders, and can only react by observing the expressions of others, and often exhibits unexpected behaviors. Every change in his emotions often becomes the focus of heated discussion among the audience.
Can you imagine it? There are really such a group of people in the world who lack the ability to describe emotions in words, cannot properly express their inner attitudes, feelings, hopes and motivations, and are not good at distinguishing emotional states and physical feelings. They often only describe physical discomfort and not Talk about your emotions. On the surface, they can be consistent with society and adapt well, but after careful observation, they will find that they just live mechanically like robots. [1]
"Emotional color blindness"
In the early 1970s, a foreign study observed 20 patients with psychosomatic diseases and found that 16 of them had obvious emotional description difficulties and lack of imagination. They could not Express your true feelings well.
"They give the impression that they are different and out of place, as if they come from a completely different world, but live in a society dominated by emotions." Harvard University psychiatrist Peter Sifneos (Peter Sifneos) in 1972 The above performance is named Alexithymia, also known as "affective insufficiency". It is not an independent mental illness, but a psychological feature or secondary symptom that is more common in physical or mental illness, and is related to the treatment and prognosis of the disease. [1]
"People with alexithymia do not feel uncomfortable, and they have no motivation to change. After all, I don't need to hide my identity." Yu Hui learned that he had alexithymia during a psychological consultation process, the doctor He is recommended to watch various literary and artistic works, communicate with the characters in the play emotionally, and then move it to reality. He also recommends that he write an emotional diary to express his experience that day with as accurate emotions as possible. However, despite trying these treatments, he still bluntly said that "the effect is average to be honest."
It is understood that alexithymia was originally a type of emotional symptom found in clinical outpatient clinics. It is mainly manifested as the inability of patients to express their feelings clearly. It is also known as the inability to express emotions. It mainly refers to the individual's lack of recognition of others and description of their own emotions. Ability, specifically manifested in three aspects: difficulty in emotion recognition, difficulty in describing emotions, and external-oriented thinking. [5]
Among them, the difficulty in emotion recognition refers to the difficulty in recognizing the emotions of oneself and others, such as the inability to accurately recognize the facial expression changes of others. In the play, Du Xianshou often doesn't understand the reason his wife is angry, and will only remedy it by constantly apologizing and subduing. After discovering the secret he had buried for many years, his wife was frustrated and cried and said to him "I hate you." He felt very depressed: "I can't understand, I can't understand you at all."
Refers to the obstacles in describing one's own emotions, such as the inability to express one's emotions and thoughts with accurate words. In the play, his wife sees through Du Xian's concealed identity and still understands him, and he burst into tears. She asked him, "Why are you crying again?" He replied, "I don't know either." Yu Hui was deeply moved by this scene. "I sometimesCry, cry a little bit weird. "
In 2015, an artist he liked passed away. After learning the news, he cried for a long time. In July this year, he learned that another artist had passed away and cried for two more days. He also recalled, "I had a girlfriend who came to my city to look for me in the early years. She was very emotional, but I didn't feel anything. Later when we talked about this experience, I cried. Confused."
However, he didn't know what emotion he wanted to express when he cried. On the contrary, he first thought of explaining this emotion, "I will infer my own emotions based on the current facts and logic, but most of the reasoning is wrong." Yu Hui told the author that he is not only dull but often insensitive to his emotions. No feeling.
The external-oriented thinking mainly refers to the fact that the individual pays little or little attention to inner feelings in life, lacks fantasy, and often sticks to the details of daily life [5]. In the play, Du Xianshou needs to imitate the expression of happiness through watching videos. Yu Hui thinks that he did this "just to play a good father and a good husband", so as to better hide his identity.
He admits that unless he has similar needs, he will not express his emotions through imitation and learning. He believes that he has no desire to change: "What is the purpose of doing this?"
Studies have shown that even people with alexithymia Realizing that they are "incapable of expressing emotions," they still cannot accurately distinguish their true emotions and feelings. This situation is similar to "red-green" color blindness patients, who realize that they cannot distinguish colors accurately, but they still cannot distinguish correctly. [3] Therefore, alexithymia is also called "emotional color blindness." After
learned of the diagnosis, Yu Hui did not feel any relief at all: "Some diseases will soon be cured by knowing what they are. However, the psychological barrier is that knowing what is the beginning of treatment is only a matter of improvement. "I don't know what love is"
"I don't know what love is."
Seeing that many viewers don't understand the emotional obstacles shown by the male protagonist in the play, Lulu used his own experience on Douban to conduct popular science on netizens. Her youngest daughter suffers from autism spectrum disorder, and alexithymia is one of the symptoms. She found that children were not able to understand complex emotions since childhood: "She can't judge some contextual words by feeling emotions, but can only understand the literal meaning through logic."
Recall that when a child was a child, everyone would call her very affectionately. , Or take her little hands and kiss them lovingly and say, "I want to take a bite of this little hands." Generally, children with normal emotional perception will get into trouble with their parents, "but she will get angry because she only Can understand the literal meaning of these words, but cannot understand the love emotions behind these words.” Lulu told me that compared with normal people, children give less feedback to people and things around them, and have less compassion and empathy.
In fact, alexithymia is a relatively stable personality characteristic, which is normally distributed in the adult population, and 10% to 15% of individuals have a significant level of alexithymia. Studies abroad have found that alexithymia occurs in 13% to 19% of the population. There are relatively few studies on alexithymia in China. A study of junior high school students found that alexithymia has an incidence of 23.6%, and in other studies there are also 10%-18% incidences. And alexithymia may affect the individual's interpersonal relationship, and then affect their own learning ability, social adaptation and mental health. [2]
Yu Hui said that it is always difficult for him to integrate into the group in interpersonal communication, and it is easy to give people the appearance of arrogance, so he can't make true friends, and it is easy to break up with girlfriends. In addition, many people feel that he "has no vision," and he offends many people because of this. "For this reason, I lost my job, hurt someone I really love, and almost pushed a suicidal person to the point where he really wanted to commit suicide." He only realized this after psychological counseling, "But it has happened. It cannot be changed.”
At present, his girlfriend is trying to change him. For example, he has more emotional outbursts and more communication with him. The quarrel between them often ends in communication and reconciliation. "She can talk about any emotions, and tell me her physical changes, which can be regarded as using the body as a teaching aid to teach me what kind of physical response a certain emotion should be." Even so, the girlfriend still sees little effect.
He confessed that he occasionally expresses his love to her, "but I don’t feel that love is real." Sometimes his girlfriend did something that moved him.He will express touch but not love, and his girlfriend will induce him to express it. Yu Hui believes that in the face of people with alexithymia, partners and family members often feel the most powerless and collapsed. "Her powerlessness is because she sacrificed so much, but she can't get emotional resonance and feedback, and this may be like a bottomless pit, maybe it will be like this for a lifetime."
"Boyfriend and male protagonist have the same emotional barrier." After watching this show, Xiaoyan also wrote about her experience on Douban. Her boyfriend once told her that he was indifferent and didn't understand love. He never missed his parents, grandma and sister who were very close.
Xiaoyan remembers that her boyfriend once said to her, "I don't love this kind of feeling, I don't know what love is." A long time ago, she thought he had said this on purpose and wanted to express his dislike of her. Later, she gradually understood, "His logic is self-consistent, and he is like this."
"Alexithymia does not mean no feelings." "
However, many people mistakenly think that alexithymia is completely lacking in emotion. Lulu explained that alexithymia does not mean that there is no emotion. In fact, there are still basic emotions. The so-called obstacle refers to not smooth, unnatural, and lower than normal. As her age grows, her children still gradually develop emotions towards people around them, "for example, she always says she loves me most", but compared to children of the same age, she feels that her children are indeed emotionally indifferent.
Xiaoyan still remembers that whenever she quarrels to vent her emotions, or expresses inferiority complex, sadness and other complex feelings, her boyfriend always behaves very dumbly, "He doesn't know what I'm talking about, why he cry." In daily communication , Once there is a logical fault in her expression, especially when describing emotions, he will say "not understand." Whether it is happy or sad, he always restrains his emotions.
He would occasionally tell her calmly that he was angry at a certain moment, and he rarely expressed his emotions to her at other times, and he had never expressed more intense emotions. Xiaoyan told the author dumbfoundedly: "And when he expressed his upset, it was more than a month later, so he just stated a fact."
However, she realized that her boyfriend had never been "even a little confused." "On the contrary, he still feels that there is less trouble in this way. "There is communication between us, but he himself does not think this is an obstacle." Seeing some reversal news events, he will bluntly say that "the ability of empathy is the most important thing." Useless things." In interpersonal communication,
's communication habit is that he won't "take the bottom" casually, including telling her in detail. "But he will have heart-to-heart with me. After all, we have been together for almost three years. But to be honest, it is more difficult for him to have a heart-to-heart with friends."
Xiaoyan found that the male friendly image did not understand how to make herself happy, and this This situation is particularly difficult to improve. She tried to accurately express her emotions and express her needs for him. Although her boyfriend's response is usually "mechanical", it makes her happy enough, but sometimes she feels that "I am still too far away from the goal. Quite discouraged.” The scene in the
drama where the hero and sister finally meet again after more than ten years of running away from each other gives Lulu a deep impression. She thought that at this time, it was time for a normal person to have all kinds of emotions such as excitement and sadness intertwined. In the play, the sister was obviously crying too much, but the actor just calmly told her sister why he chose to meet again.
"This reaction is exactly the same as when I sent my child to kindergarten for the first time." She recalled that the children who went to school for the first time in the kindergarten cried so loudly at that time. After all, it was the first parting time, and the parents couldn't help but Secretly wiped her tears, "But my child calmly played with building blocks the whole time, waved to me, and never looked at me again." When the child was two or three years old, someone else teased her and said, "Someone beat your mother." But the child still plays with toys on his own, "I don't care about me. I was really sad at the time. Normally two or three-year-old children will protect their mothers." Lulu told the author that children are not typical autism. Without language barriers and intellectual disabilities, IQ, language, and appearance are the same as those of normal children, but abnormalities will be discovered after in-depth understanding. When the child was four years old, he went to the hospital for examination and was diagnosed with high-functioning autism.
will inevitably sigh, "Humans are emotional animals, and it is difficult for people with emotional disabilities to establish emotional links with normal people. This is simply a disaster for humans living in groups."
"Emotions are projected on the body."
Although people with alexithymia may experience "inability to express emotions", this does not mean that people with alexithymia do not feel it, they just don't know how to express it.
It is understood that people with alexithymia have a phenomenon called "somatization" by psychiatrists, that is, they mistake emotional problems for physical problems. People with alexithymia will always wonder if they have a physical illness or complain about various physical discomforts, such as cramps, shortness of breath, fast heartbeat, etc. But in fact their so-called physical discomfort is actually emotional discomfort [4]. In the play, Duxian often covers his chest and cannot breathe when he encounters external pressure.
"This kind of situation is too much." Yu Hui said that he has had a problem since he graduated from university. Whenever he is stressed, he will experience dizziness, backache or itchy throat. "I have been to the hospital many times, including color Doppler ultrasound, CT, MRI, and even cancer." Dr.
said that there was nothing serious about him, but he would still have similar symptoms afterwards. He recalled that when he was in school when he was a child, if he was bullied or admonished by the teacher, he would have fever, stomach ache or diarrhea for several days. Yu Hui still remembers that when his grandmother and grandmother died five years ago, he did not cry at all, but then he suffered from insomnia and stomach pain. Now he occasionally needs medication to fall asleep.
Despite this, the alexithymia is not all bad.
Yu Jing, chief physician of Beijing Anding Hospital affiliated to Capital Medical University, once explained on the online medical platform that people with alexithymia basically only pay attention to facts and information about the outside world because they have no emotions. They lack imagination and are very realistic. The logical thinking is usually very good. They think rationally.” Yu Hui agrees with this. He confessed that he is keen on watching mystery novels and film and television works. In real life, if he feels that his IQ "drops" at some point, he will be very upset. He also added that because people with alexithymia are less affected by emotions, they will have some abilities and are easier to achieve little. "For example, the hero in the play is a metal craftsman." After years of research, scholars have learned about alexithymia. The researches on the book are gradually deepening, and the nature and formation mechanism of alexithymia are constantly being discussed.
Currently, there are two main explanations for the formation mechanism of alexithymia. One is the defect hypothesis, that is, the cognitive mechanism. It is believed that alexithymia embodies the defects in the cognitive processing of emotions, and it is these cognitive defects that lead to it. The external characteristics of alexithymia. [6]
The other is from the perspective of social and developmental psychology, that is, the social mechanism. It is believed that the occurrence of hyperalithromytic disorder is related to some of the children’s early experiences. It develops as people mature and develops in society. Cultural and social relations are constantly strengthened, so it is affected by many social and psychological factors. [6]
"Thank you for your tolerance"
Xiaoyan wrote in the post that she has always told herself to be patient and guide her and not to vent her emotions to her boyfriend at will. "But once you get frustrated, you feel so tired and tired." She thinks that he is an ideal partner, but she feels that such an emotional disorder is like a terminal illness. No matter how hard she tries, she can't cure him. In the
comment area, there are many netizens who persuade to break up, and some bluntly said: "Is it really necessary to spend such a long time, and the result is not necessarily perfect? In the play, I definitely persuade you to persevere. In reality, I just want to persuade you to run." Some people also expressed understanding: "It is good to lower the expectations of empathy, perfect people do not exist." Xiaoyan
said in reply to one of the netizens: "When I first got together, I often broke down because of this, but now I feel the small progress of both parties, but in fact, I feel hurt because my expectations are too high.” Yu Hui’s girlfriend of
once told him that although he often felt hurt when he was with him, it would not be that way when denied by others outside. Uncomfortable, "Maybe the high joy that low expectations will bring?" He thought, he also hopes to establish a deep trust relationship with everyone, but this is extremely difficult for him. Yu Hui said frankly that he always wanted to say to the people around him, "I am very grateful for your tolerance for me, and I am sorry for hurting you, for your hard work."
"Being a family member of an emotionally impaired person is really tiring." Lulu found that children rarely have a hard time with whom to leave. Whether it is to grandparents, parents or friends, she can always be very Say goodbye cool. The one that gave way to the last impression was that at homeThere was an aunt who had brought her child for three years, and the aunt was crying with tears when she was parting, and felt very sad, but the child did not have the slightest mood swing.
"It can be seen that it is really difficult for an emotionally impaired person to fall in love with a person. Therefore, it is really normal for the protagonist in the play to say that he does not love the protagonist at the beginning." She couldn't help but sigh.
Lulu expressed her concern to the author. She is particularly afraid that her child will live on an island with only her own and depressed, so she tries to guide her child how to get along with others and how to get along with her own emotions. She admitted that she was ready, "Even if she is different from ordinary people, I must always love her, trust her, and guard her."
"I am willing to be a bridge between her and the world."
(should be interviewed) The author requested that Yu Hui, Xiaoyan, and Lulu are all pseudonyms)
Suggestions for the treatment of alexithymia: Currently, the methods commonly used in clinical practice and proven to be effective include diary, reading, and psychotherapy. [2]
01
diary method. The research shows that writing is very helpful to strengthen the individual's emotional perception ability. For patients with alexithymia, this may be a very difficult thing, but long-term persistence can help expand their horizons and consciously feel the emotions of people around them and their own emotional changes.
02
reading. In reading, people with alexithymia can learn how the author describes emotions, thoughts, and personal experiences. Good reading habits can not only help individuals accumulate knowledge, but also help individuals experience the emotions of others in reading and learn how others express.
03
learning about art. All art works of contain certain emotions. They either express the emotions of the creator or the emotions of the artistic image. In the process of art learning or creation, people can experience different emotions, which helps people express their emotions.
04
psychotherapy. promotes the alexithymia to learn to express through intentional guidance, which can help the alexithymia learn to correctly understand the internal emotional state of the individual and how to recognize the emotions of others.
05
group psychotherapy. In group therapy, the therapist will create a safe environment for members. Members can encourage and support each other, participate in role-playing and non-verbal communication activities to express their inner feelings.
06
Hypnosis and relaxation training. Through hypnosis and relaxation training, can arouse the memory of alexithymia or stimulate their imagination, thereby alleviating the symptoms of alexithymia. [2]
Reference:
[1] Overview of clinical research on alexithymia Zhao Aizhen, Geng Deqin (2001)
[2] Research status and intervention of alexithymia Yang Xueli, Liang Zongbao (2016)
[3] Youth Statement The relationship between emotional disorder, conflict response and the quality of intimacy, Jiang Qi (2016)
[4] A review of alexithymia research Sui Huajie, Jiang Manli, Zhang Chenglin, etc. (2016)
[5] Taylor GJ. Recent developments in alexithymia theory and research. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry / La Revue canadienne de psychiatrie (2000)
[6] Cognitive and social mechanisms of the causes of alexithymia Zhang Chunyu, Zhang Jinfu, Zhang Jingqiu, Zhang Pingping
Source | Southern Metropolis Weekly
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