Treatment of absence of feelings and emotions. Psychological and drug therapy. We work around the clock.

5 24505 January 19, 2021 at 04:27 pm Author of the publication: Marina Alekseeva

“I don’t feel emotions” is a death-like experience. Perhaps life used to be full of colors, but for some reason they have faded. There is no former enthusiasm, no desires, no feelings. Or people around you say that you are emotionally closed and not responsive. You might want to establish connections with people, support your loved ones, but it doesn’t work out—it’s empty inside. Sometimes all you have to do is pretend that you feel good so as not to lose those around you.

Of course, this situation is not normal. When there is a desire to experience feelings, it must be realized. And if it doesn’t work out, I need to find out why I don’t feel emotions.

How to fill the emotional emptiness and return the former brightness of life? Psychoanalysis, which is provided by Yuri Burlan’s training “System-vector psychology,” will help you deal with these issues.

How to start feeling again?

To restore emotionality, sensuality and joy of life, it is necessary to understand what is difficult for a person to come to terms with and accept. What functions did the broken relationship serve for him? What internal cockroaches is he afraid to face now? Psychotherapy can be of great help with this.

Forum for free psychological help

But a series of nice, deep sobs can also help, in which all the pain and drama of the events that happened will be expressed. It is very important not to be afraid to face the pain that is happening inside. This is the only way to free yourself from it and clear the way for new emotions.

Do not deny yourself the pleasure and roar properly, regardless of whether you are a woman or a man stern in his brutality. You have to cry so that you are thoroughly shaken and shaken. Then something without which life cannot be complete will return to you again.

It is important to admit that you loved this person and you are now very sad, sad and hurt that the relationship is over. You need to let it all out of yourself, otherwise it will gnaw from the inside. And timely, sincere tears will be an invaluable assistant to you in this situation.

Author: Dmitry Malin - clinical psychologist

What is alexithymia?

From a psychological point of view, alexithymia is the inability to adequately understand one’s own emotions and correctly perceive others’. This does not mean that a person does not experience emotions at all or experiences them incorrectly. This means that he interprets them incorrectly. But emotions still have an impact on him, affecting his mental state and forcing him to make certain decisions.

The term is of Greek origin. It is formed from the words λέξις (lexis - word) and θυμός (thymos - feeling), as well as the prefix ἀ, denoting negation. Thus, the word “alexithymia” can be translated into the phrase “there are no words for feelings.” In the scientific community, it is believed that the term does not convey the meaning of the concept well. But attempts to replace it were unsuccessful, and it became generally accepted.

Psychologists say that alexithymia is present to one degree or another in approximately 15% of the world's population. This condition can be congenital or acquired. At the moment, alexithymia does not have the status of a mental disorder and is not included in international disease classifiers such as ICD-10. But this does not prevent psychologists and psychotherapists from recognizing the existence of this problem and looking for ways to combat it.

Causes of emotional burnout

Emotional burnout occurs as a result of the internal accumulation of negative emotions without a corresponding “discharge” or “liberation” from them. It leads to the depletion of a person’s emotional, energetic and personal resources.

Burning out means losing touch with the world, alienating yourself from yourself, other people, and life in general. At the same time, all positive emotions are dulled. In its deeper stages, burnout can be called “death within life.”

Burnout syndrome is characterized by emotional and mental exhaustion, decreased satisfaction from work and physical fatigue. In this case, life does not bring you joy, and work does not bring you satisfaction. Your nervous energy is exhausted; you need to deal with this problem in time. The result is that a person becomes indifferent to everything. In place of pity for others comes a lack of understanding. The attitude also changes not only towards patients or clients, but also towards employees and family, when a stream of aggression and contempt is poured out on innocent people. And where did that friendly person everyone knew go?

Burnout syndrome in social professions occurs quite often; unfortunately, not everyone takes the necessary measures to prevent or treat it. What's even more surprising is that many people don't even know what it is, and the symptoms of burnout syndrome are attributed to ordinary fatigue.

Burnout syndrome can arise as a result of constant and long-term interaction with a large number of people, when there is a need to show various emotions, sometimes not coinciding with the internal emotional state. There are situations when a person sacrifices his needs to work needs, almost completely forgets about himself and his family. It is not right.

Chemical Dependency – “The Disease of Frozen Feelings”

While we live, we feel something every second. Feelings are replaced with great frequency by one another and the palette of human feelings is very diverse. And now you feel something, for example - interest, excitement, anxiety, hope or something else.

The ability to feel is born with us and is one of the signs of the health of our psyche; each feeling in its own way helps us adapt to the world. Therefore, all feelings are equally important and useful. As a baby develops, it goes through a number of stages in recognizing feelings. At first, the child experiences only basic feelings, he can be happy, angry, afraid and sad. And parents are our first assistants in this experience of determining “what I feel now.” As the child grows up, he learns to understand such shades as bitterness, melancholy, despondency and the fact that these feelings are different.

However, in the process of upbringing, many adults interfere with the normal formation of emotional experiences in children, since they themselves have problems with this. In any family there are unspoken rules by which the family lives, and which are passed on from generation to generation. These rules determine the life of the family and the relationships between its members. And also how each of them deals with their feelings. So in some families it is customary to vigorously express “positive” feelings and at the same time completely remain silent about “negative” ones. In others, on the contrary, “negative” things spill out violently, and love is not usually expressed. And in the third, it is not customary to express any feelings. There is a lot of psychological tension in such families, and this gives rise to pain. And in order to get away from pain, the child gets used to “freezing” his feelings. Thus, a person learns to protect himself from internal experiences by failing to recognize them and shares them with other people. This condition is called alexithymia. Strictly speaking, alexithymia is not a disease as such; a psychiatrist or psychotherapist cannot give you a diagnosis, since it is not included in the classification of diseases. Perhaps it can be called a special condition, which is characterized by difficulty in understanding one’s own feelings, the inability to distinguish the subtle nuances of one’s experiences and difficulty expressing them (both through gestures, posture and facial expressions, and in verbal communication with other people). Such people are afraid of expressing their feelings and emotions; the idea of allowing themselves to be emotional causes them strong resistance, they do not know how to do it. Subsequently, “forbidden” feelings remain at some primitive level, perceived through the sensations of “good” and “bad.” The world becomes black and white instead of color.

People who show signs of alexithymia feel somehow different, not alive, they are missing something inside. Therefore, they try to fill this lack with something, anything, just to feel alive and get away from the inner emptiness, tension and pain. Any activity that will help take your mind off this or any behavior that, on the contrary, will give a lot of feelings and emotions at once is suitable here. Because of this, many of them fall into chemical dependence, because alcohol, like drugs, stimulate some feelings (make the world more interesting and brighter, fill it with feelings and emotions) and drown out others (such as anxiety, pain, shame, guilt). The action is over, very simple, take it again and again. There are also many non-chemical, behavioral addictions that also allow you to get feelings and emotions.

If we don’t go back to distant childhood, but talk specifically about chemical dependence, then the main feelings of a chemically dependent person are shame, guilt, anxiety, depression, and hopelessness. These feelings sometimes cause terrible emotional pain in any healthy person, but what if they are present every day for several months or years?

The most painful state is the awareness of oneself as a bad, worthless person. What should you do to get away from these feelings? It turns out to be a vicious circle: use causes feelings of guilt, shame, fear, depression, from which the chemically dependent person knows how to get rid of one way - by using. That is why chemical dependence is also called a disease of “frozen” or “unexpressed feelings.” Thus, in order to recover from chemical addiction, it is not enough to simply undergo detoxification or use the coding method, since working with the emotional sphere is an important part of treatment. If changes do not occur in the emotional sphere, then the likelihood of returning to use is very high.

In addition, what is especially important for chemically dependent people is that understanding your emotions and feelings allows you to deal with the desire to use drugs (craving) and get rid of it. A person, as a biological being, cannot have “cravings”, this is the sensation that a chemically dependent person confuses with such simple sensations as hunger or fatigue, or more complex ones - the need to be accepted, understood, loved, etc. If I learned to be aware of myself at every moment of time, then I don’t feel the desire to use, I know what I want - to eat, drink, communicate, be loved, heard, understood, etc.

When we do not deny our emotions, when we comprehend the language of feelings, we become the owners of an indispensable means of solving the problems that life throws at us. This ability is the main prerequisite for our recovery and spiritual development. Understanding our own emotions gives us new perspectives and increases the likelihood of realizing our potential. We become a thinking, feeling and acting person. Be honest about your feelings, don't pretend to be happy when you're not, confident when you're scared, allow yourself to be sad, scared, worried, loving. And remember that there are no “good” or “bad” feelings, they are all important. Feelings are what are inside us, they give us a feeling of life, they bring colors and shades into our lives.

It is clear that all this may not be clear and new to someone, someone does not understand these subtle mechanisms, but today, in order to help you, psychologists and psychotherapists are working, and you can always turn to them for help.

Psychologist V.V. Kopysova

Symptoms of professional burnout:

The first group is psychophysical symptoms:

feeling of constant fatigue not only in the evenings, but also in the mornings, immediately after sleep (a symptom of chronic fatigue);
feeling of emotional and physical exhaustion;
decreased sensitivity and reactivity due to changes in the external environment (absence of a curiosity reaction to the factor of novelty or a fear reaction to a dangerous situation);
general asthenia (weakness, decreased activity and energy, deterioration of blood biochemistry and hormonal parameters);
frequent causeless headaches; persistent gastrointestinal disorders;
sudden weight loss or weight gain;
complete or partial insomnia;
constant lethargy, drowsiness and desire to sleep throughout the day;
shortness of breath or breathing problems during physical or emotional stress;
a noticeable decrease in external and internal sensory sensitivity: deterioration of vision, hearing, smell and touch, loss of internal, bodily sensations.

The second group - socio-psychological symptoms:

indifference, boredom, passivity and depression (low emotional tone, feeling depressed);
increased irritability to minor, minor events;
frequent nervous breakdowns (outbursts of unmotivated anger or refusal to communicate, withdrawal);
constant experience of negative emotions for which there is no reason in the external situation (feelings of guilt, resentment, shame, suspicion, constraint);
a feeling of unconscious anxiety and increased anxiety (the feeling that “something is not right”);
a feeling of hyper-responsibility and a constant feeling of fear that “it won’t work out” or “I can’t handle it”;
a general negative attitude toward life and professional prospects (like “no matter how hard you try, nothing will work out”).

The third group is behavioral symptoms:

the feeling that the work is becoming harder and harder, and that it is becoming more and more difficult to do it;
the employee noticeably changes his work schedule (increases or reduces working hours);
constantly, unnecessarily, takes work home, but does not do it at home;
the manager finds it difficult to make decisions;
feelings of uselessness, lack of faith in improvements, decreased enthusiasm for work, indifference to results;
failure to complete important, priority tasks and “getting stuck” on small details, spending most of the working time in a way that does not meet job requirements on little or unconscious performance of automatic and elementary actions;
distance from colleagues and clients (patients, students), increased inappropriate criticality;
alcohol abuse, a sharp increase in cigarettes smoked per day, drug use.

Burnout syndrome also occurs with chronic maladapted stress.

How to recognize stress? Signs of stress:

1. Physical:

general muscle tension and associated pain in the chest, abdomen, back, neck;
trembling or nervous tics;
spasms and associated intestinal and renal colic, constipation, diarrhea, difficulty swallowing, headaches, stuttering;
high blood pressure, increased heart rate.

2. Emotional:

Restlessness or increased excitability;
Irritability, anger, aggressiveness;
Inability to concentrate, confusion of thoughts;
Feeling of helplessness, fear.

3. Behavioral:

Restlessness or increased excitability;
Irritability, anger, aggressiveness;
Inability to concentrate, confusion of thoughts;
Feeling of helplessness, fear.

Types of alexithymia

In an effort to more accurately understand what alexithymia is and why it occurs, researchers have identified two forms of this disorder: primary and secondary. They differ in their nature and some features of manifestation. For effective treatment, it is very important to correctly determine which form is present in the patient.

Primary alexithymia

This is a deficit of emotional reactions that is physiological in nature. It may be due to the functioning of the nervous system or disturbances in its functioning. Instinctive impulses that cause emotional reactions affect the brain and other body systems. But at the same time, they bypass the process of awareness and mental regulation, which makes it difficult for a person to identify his own experiences.

Up to 85% of all patients with autism spectrum disorder suffer from primary alexithymia. Due to its physiological nature, it is practically not amenable to psychotherapeutic correction. To improve the condition of such patients, it is necessary to radically change their living conditions. They should have less stress and more opportunities to develop their emotional intelligence. To do this, they need to learn to identify their emotions according to various signs in order to compensate for the lack of natural ability to do this.

Secondary alexithymia

This form of deficit of emotional reactions is of a psychological nature and is most often caused by the denial of emotions. The reasons for this denial vary. For example, these can be various defensive reactions of the psyche, such as denial, repression, suppression and others. Because emotions are blocked or repressed, they are often not recognized, but can lead to somatic or even mental disorders.

Secondary alexithymia responds well to psychotherapeutic correction. The complexity of treatment depends on how long ago the disorder arose. If it goes back to childhood, it will be more difficult to get rid of it. And the most favorable prognosis is in cases where alexithymia developed in adulthood (for example, as a reaction to mental trauma or stressful circumstances).

The fact that it is easier to get rid of secondary alexithymia is quite logical. A person is already familiar with all emotions, he has simply lost the ability to correctly identify and interpret them. It is much easier to return this ability to an adult than to learn to understand emotions if he has never been able to do so.

Thus, the treatment of primary and secondary alexithymia has different goals. In the first case, a person learns to understand his own and other people’s emotions from scratch, and in the second, he simply remembers how this is done. A special test developed by the Toronto Alexithymia School (TAS) allows one to determine the form and degree of the disorder with fairly high accuracy.