A callous, unemotional person: why is he like this and what to do?

To a person It's common to experience emotions , both pleasant and not so pleasant.

As a rule, a person is aware of what he feels, since he has the ability to recognize his experiences and knows how to describe them.

But there are those who can neither recognize nor express their own emotions in words.

What is this phenomenon called? Let's look at the definitions of basic concepts, causes, symptoms, prognosis and treatment methods.

What is a state of emotional deprivation? Find out about this from our article.

What are such people called?

In everyday life, unemotional people are called callous, indifferent, thick-skinned, dry, soulless, cold, indifferent, insensitive, cynical.

From a scientific point of view, such individuals are considered alexithymic.

Alexithymia is a disorder in which a person is unable to express his own emotions in words.

Alexithymics are distinguished by their conflicting nature, poor resistance to stress, and poor imagination. They often encounter somatic diseases that are formed on human emotions.

Healthy individuals experience emotions intensely , are able to recognize and understand them, and therefore eliminate and calm them.

Since the alexithymic person is not aware of his experiences, he is unable to find a competent approach to eliminating them. Such people look at the world with hostility and do not know how to react normally to stress.

They have no motivation, no moral guidelines, no goals that appear under the influence of positive emotional stimuli.

For whom feelings are the meaning of life

Lack of feelings is not so critical for everyone. Only 5% of people feel alive only when they experience strong emotions. These are people with a visual vector in their psyche. They are very emotional by nature, because their purpose is to love, sympathize, be impressed, and communicate. Others do this too, but much less emotionally and not so dependent on the expression of feelings.

When this ability disappears (but the desire to love remains), people with a visual vector lose meaning, and an uncomfortable state of anxiety and fear of loneliness, separation from people and life arises.

Why don't you feel anything:

• lacks the skill to create emotional connections;
• a ban on feelings in the process of education is imposed;
• there was a loss of sensitivity after severe stress;
• feelings are suppressed due to depression, lack of meaning in life.

Real life stories written on psychological forums will help us understand these reasons.

Lack of skill in expressing emotions

“I don’t feel feelings or emotions. On the one hand, I’ve already somehow gotten used to it. On the other hand, I upset my loved ones, and most importantly, my girlfriend. I can't empathize with people. I have no desire to meet and chat. I spend more time alone, although this does not give me pleasure. My parents divorced when I was 10 years old. I didn’t see my father anymore; my mother was at work all the time. I grew up with my grandmother. It was not customary for us to show our feelings, and I am still surprised when relatives hug and talk about their love for each other. I want to learn to empathize so as not to be afraid of close relationships.”

If this has always been the case, then the lack of feelings is due to the fact that the skill of realizing them was not formed in childhood. Every visual child is born with great emotional potential, but if there were traumas in childhood or parents did not pay attention to the development of the child’s sensory sphere, he does not know how to use his abilities.

We see that our hero suffered painfully from his parents’ divorce: the severance of emotional ties greatly traumatizes the little viewer. It was not customary in the family to show love or talk heart to heart. Feelings did not develop. Although the desire is there, it is not backed by skill.

“I experience emotions only when I fantasize or watch films or read books alone. I don’t know how to contact people, I’m not interested in them. I have to pretend to establish contact with girls or children, but they feel false and don’t want to communicate with me.”

Feelings should be directed primarily at other people. The skill of enjoying life is the ability to live among other people. Substitutes for live communication - books, films - will not help you experience real joy in life. Yuri Burlan explains why this is so. Watch a snippet of the training:

Ban on feelings from parents

There is a social stereotype that men do not cry. Therefore, raising boys often involves a ban on tears: “Why are you being a nurse? Be a man!" But this approach is not applicable when it comes to a sensitive boy with a visual vector. He just needs to cry tears of sympathy over some sad story, otherwise his feelings will be locked up, and he will not be able to manifest his purpose in this life - to love, to empathize.

In the Russian mentality, crying is generally shameful, so such a ban in our country can also apply to girls: “Stop crying! Keep calm! Shame on you, you are strong! What will people say? And a girl with a visual vector turns out to be incapable of love when she grows up.

Listen to Yuri Burlan talk about why you can’t hold back your tears:

Unfeeling after stress

“Two years ago I suffered a severe stressful situation. Since then I’ve been walking like a stone - I can’t be happy, sad, or even afraid of anything. Lost sense of humor. I used to be a creative person, and my emotional sensitivity meant a lot to me. How can I be cured?

“I used to be very cheerful and cheerful, but at the age of 18 my emotions completely turned off after a stressful period in my life. Without them I'm just a vegetable. It was as if everything inside was numb. I don’t feel love for people, not even for my parents. I say words, but behind them there is emptiness. I want, as before, to love, to hate, to speak from the heart.”

Stress can be different - violence, breaking up a relationship with an emotionally significant person, ridicule of first love. There are a lot of such stories when emotionally unbearable situations force people - consciously or unconsciously - to give up their feelings. Consciously - when a person simply restrains himself.

For example, there was a situation of tragic unrequited love and the “lesson” learned from it: “I will never fall in love again. It hurts too much." Or unrealized feelings cause constant hysterics and tears. It seems that life is full of stress. And then the decision is made: “I forbid myself to cry. I will never again watch difficult films or read books that make me cry.”

Unfortunately, giving up feelings does not solve the problem. Over time, insensitivity develops - the person really seems to gain the emotional calm that he was striving for. But the desire to use your rich emotional abilities has not gone away. It will manifest itself in fears and panic attacks. Psychosomatics may appear at the bodily level. For example, a person does not feel anger, but physically he may experience palpitations, choking, or a lump in the throat.

Lack of feelings during depression

“There was never emotional contact with loved ones and friends. In general, relationships with no one developed. I went on a spree - endless drinking, parties, but in the end there was only an even greater emptiness inside. I try to force myself to be interested in something, but it doesn’t last long. Again I slide into this emotionless state when nothing makes me happy. Recently, I have developed intolerance to nicotine, caffeine and alcohol, and chronic fatigue. Just don't recommend psychologists to me. I went and took pills, but it didn’t help.”

“I don’t feel emotions... Only the fear that life will pass, and I will continue to watch it as if from a window, as if I were watching a movie. I don’t enjoy either my favorite activities or food. The mood is always bad. I want to cry. I live as if in a vacuum, as if in a nightmare.”

If, along with a visual vector, a person also has a sound one, he may experience depression - a painful condition caused by a lack of meaning in life. Whatever he does, wherever he directs his interest, in the end it all comes down to the meaninglessness of what is happening. Only when a person realizes himself is he able to feel true joy in life. And when he does not know why he appeared in this world and what to do, he experiences emptiness from the lack of meaning in life.

This is exactly what a person with a sound vector feels when he cannot understand his desires, which differ from the aspirations of most people, because they are intangible. The vector of his desires is aimed at knowing himself and other people. There are too many things in this world that distract him, preventing him from understanding himself and realizing the purpose of his life. He feels strange, different, different from others. Doesn't fit into life. Compares himself with others and not in his favor. Asks the question: “Why are they happy and enjoying life? Why don't I feel the same emotions?

Depression and apathy go hand in hand when you don’t want to get up and do something, when nothing makes you happy, when you don’t have the strength to live and hopeless fatigue sets in. The sound vector in a state of non-realization affects emotions - they seem to freeze, because they also have no meaning.

What to do to get your feelings back?

Definition of concepts

Emotional rigidity is manifested in the fact that the individual weakly, very selectively and within a narrow range shows emotional reactions to all kinds of stimuli.

Emotional dullness is a special mental state in which a person either very weakly expresses or completely loses higher emotions (sympathy, respect, tolerance, tact, modesty, honesty, conscientiousness, etc.).

Emotional coldness is a disorder in which an individual does not experience emotions at all, or their expression weakens.

With emotional stupor, under the influence of intense mental experiences (fear, horror, danger to life), a state arises in which affective activity and motor activity are blocked, and the thought process slows down.

Emotional depression , a pathological mental state, which is characterized by a drop in mood, loss of interest in everything around, and deterioration in well-being.

An emotionless person, why is he like this?

An unemotional or low-emotional person, why is he like this?

Some consider alexithymia to be a disease, others believe that it is a personality trait . Alexithymia is conventionally divided into primary and secondary.

Primary is caused by congenital defects that occur during the development of the fetus, the birth of a child, and the passage of the first childhood diseases.

Secondary is due to reasons that can manifest themselves at a more conscious age:

• traumatic experiences
• stressful situations,
• mental disorders.

Some experts see the causes of this disease in aspects related to public culture .

A person is not educated, he lacks a social culture, an elementary education in which he could study himself, his emotions and ways of expressing them.

Signs of alexithymia

Psychologists recognize the presence of alexithymia in a person by the following signs:

1. Incomprehensible states. They are described as “heavy hearted”, “cat scratching” or something similar that defines moral discomfort. A person simply does not have enough words to convey the experiences that burden or “tear the chest.”
2. Confusion between feelings, thoughts and bodily sensations. Instead of expressing emotions, thoughts are expressed (“I’m not sure,” “I think”) or physical sensations are described (“cramped leg,” “cold,” “uncomfortable chair”). And all because there is mental discomfort, but there is no understanding of what exactly causes it. Therefore, things that are “acceptable” in this state are presented as its cause.
3. Replacing true reactions with ones that are appropriate for a particular situation. Emotions are not experienced; they are replaced by memories and patterns of habitual social behavior. For example, someone joked, you need to smile or play any other reaction that is appropriate in a particular case.
4. Fear of showing emotions. When some emotion arises, people with alexithymia experience internal resistance and even fear. They immediately remember the attitudes “being angry is bad”, “crying is shameful”, “laughing loudly is indecent”, “being rude is impolite” and similar ones. And the only way out, as it seems to them, is total control of their own feelings.

Sometimes emotions still spill out into affective outbursts. A person tries to hide and withdraws because he feels a sense of guilt and shame in front of himself or others. This could be unexpected hysterics, violent crying or uncontrollable laughter, an outburst of rage or another reaction that does not correspond in intensity to the event. After this, as a rule, there is a desire to control yourself even more, not to show emotions and feelings at all. They, fueled by self-dissatisfaction, accumulate to a greater extent, which leads to new affective outbursts. And so on in a circle.

Why is there not enough emotion in life?

According to psychoanalysts, alexithymia is considered emotional dullness , developing as a defensive reaction to a certain negative factor. Throughout life, a person constantly faces stressful situations.

If he is not able to overcome them, gradual addiction occurs. The absence of an emotional reaction to what is happening serves as a defense mechanism of the human psyche.

The reason for the appearance of alexithymia may be certain concepts of upbringing that the individual had to go through at a tender age.

Statements like “men shouldn’t cry”, “public display of emotions is the height of indecency” can lead to the development of the ability to suppress one’s own feelings.

Diagnosis

The absence of emotions in itself is not a disease, but it can often serve as a sign of certain diseases or mental disorders :

• organic brain damage;
• psychopathy;
• schizophrenia;
• depression;
• heboid syndrome;
• dementia.

Be that as it may, only a psychiatrist or psychotherapist .

Emotional dullness: symptoms

How to recognize emotional dullness?

1. The individual cannot express his feelings in words. There is a mask on the face without emotions. Due to such emotional “illiteracy”, his intellect does not develop. Since a person does not understand experience, he has absolutely no inclination towards empathy.
   Sometimes he appears heartless and selfish in the eyes of others. Although in reality the individual would be happy to take part, he simply does not know how this is done.

   Because of this, in such situations, he often resolves the issue with a template phrase.

2. of conflicts with others increases Since a person does not understand his own emotions, he does not know how to change his behavioral reactions and approach to them. The result is loneliness.
3. One of the most striking signs is pragmatic thinking and a total lack of interest in creativity . Creative abilities develop only in those who are capable of vividly experiencing and understanding their own emotions. Alexithymic is not aware of his feelings, so he thinks based solely on logic. At the same time, sudden emotional outbursts are not uncommon, when an individual splashes out his state on other people, without realizing why this is happening.
4. Problems arise with adequate reflection on what is happening .
   Since an individual does not recognize emotions, he is unable to respond in a timely manner to the behavior of others and adapt to it. At the same time, self-regulation does not suffer particularly. If necessary, alexithymics can quickly change both at the external and internal levels, adapting to new conditions.
5. Alexithymics may not dream at all. If they dream of something in their night dreams, then, as a rule, it is ordinary gray everyday life.
6. They deny that problems are caused by emotional impulses . There is no such thing as intuition for them.
7. When talking about their own experiences, these people often use words that describe physical sensations . They are not able to distinguish between physical pain and mental anguish, joy and warmth.
8. The existence of such individuals becomes unbearably boring and dull due to the lack of emotions; their personal and social life is not organized .
   Lacking the ability to understand the feelings of another person, an alexithymic person suspects that the partner is making up problems out of nowhere. The inability to feel guilt and remorse leads to the fact that such a person shifts responsibility onto the shoulders of others, and this, of course, does not contribute to the establishment of strong relationships.
9. These people are afraid of change and avoid expressing their own feelings. The very idea of ​​allowing themselves to be more emotional causes strong resistance in them.
10. Most alexithymics feel lifeless, as if something is missing inside. As a result, they strive to fill this emptiness with anything.
    For this reason, such people often fall into alcohol or drug addiction, because these substances color the world with different colors, filling it with vivid emotions and unusual sensations. As soon as the effect wears off, you want to take a new dose again and again. There are many behavioral addictions that allow you to experience a lot of feelings and experiences at once.

Something strange in the chest

Let's be honest: many of us have a hard time processing certain experiences, such as mild irritation. But most people won't confuse this feeling with joy or grief. An alexithymic person may well do this or interpret the irritation as a physical sensation.

You'll likely perceive butterflies in your stomach as excitement, while a person with alexithymia may think it's just hunger. The “lump in the throat” that we feel when we are very upset will be something really stuck in the throat for him.

The intense experiences that alexithymics feel in their body can be frustrating and frightening. For example, horror or falling in love, which are accompanied by a rapid pulse and sweating, can be interpreted by them as physical discomfort that needs to be gotten rid of quickly.

“I remember looking into the eyes of one girl I had been dating for a couple of months, and I felt something strange in my chest, as if something was shaking there. I understood that she was beautiful and we had good sex, in which we experimented freely. But I didn’t like the state that appeared next to her at that moment, so a little later I told her that I wanted to break up. She was shocked because she thought that I would confess my love to her. But what is love? Maybe it was her? - Alexey reasons.

Psychologists Beata Herbert, Olga Pollatos and Cornelia Herbert have found that the better we feel bodily changes, the better we understand our emotions. And with alexithymia, on the contrary, it is difficult for a person to focus on the internal processes of the body - this was the conclusion reached by Oxford professor Geoffrey Bird.

For the first time, alexithymia began to be studied in connection with the body. Psychiatry professor Peter Sifneos, who coined the term in the 1970s, studied the personality traits of patients in psychosomatic clinics. Some patients could not clearly formulate their emotional state and convey physical sensations in words. Their postures and movements were tense, their facial expressions were poor, and their actions resembled robots. But what was primary - manifestations in the body or alexithymia - was never determined.

Russian-Soviet psychiatrist Pyotr Gannushkin wrote in his book “Clinic of Psychopathy: Their Statics, Dynamics, Systematics” that alexithymia may be a factor predisposing to obesity in combination with depression.

For an alexithymic person, food is a regulator of internal tension. A person “eats” stress, partly because he has ignored and did not express his feelings for a long time.

The same goes for alcohol abuse. According to Polish sociologist Marek Zielkowski and his colleagues, 48% of male patients with alcohol dependence had alexithymia. And the American scientist Leonard Handelsman found that the level of alexithymia among alcoholics is higher than that of people without addiction.

Moreover, it is believed that alexithymia may be associated with coronary heart disease, diabetes mellitus, bronchial asthma, gastric and duodenal ulcers, Crohn's disease, malignant neoplasms and chronic pain.

“My emotional peculiarity is strongly connected with psychosomatics. Stressful situations have a strong impact on the body, and I quickly get tired of communicating with people,” shares Vera, who was recently diagnosed with abdominal pain.

This is pain in the abdominal cavity, the causes of which may be psychogenic. Gastroenterologist Emilia Yakovenko explains why chronic abdominal pain is closely related to depression - it’s due to insufficient serotonin synthesis. Therefore, antidepressants are good for both depression and abdominal pain.

Forecast

Lack of emotion does not affect life expectancy in any way , but it does reduce the quality of existence.

The prognosis is this: a meager life alone, devoid of bright colors and joyful moments.

First of all, it is difficult for an individual to understand himself. He seems to be experiencing feelings, but they do not fill him with the energy that normal people receive.

Positive emotions motivate, negative emotions allow you to feel threatened and learn from certain situations. A person suffering from alexithymia is deprived of this .

Communication deteriorates noticeably. A person cannot show his own emotions and give an adequate reaction to other people’s remarks. A person is incapable of compassion , as a result of which he becomes dry and soulless.

The logical approach is not always effective; the individual is considered selfish and ruthless.

People around you do not understand how to communicate with someone who does not show emotions and does not discuss them.

Social activity becomes impoverished because there are simply no people in a person’s life who are ready to accept it without emotional intimacy. The result of alexithymia is a monotonous, routine existence.

Life is so predictable that it is literally calibrated step by step, since the individual is not able to find himself in situations in which they act under the influence of emotions.

On the one hand, this, of course, frees you from unforeseen difficulties, but, on the other hand, there is no opportunity to experience unfamiliar situations.

What to do if “everything is complicated” with feelings

Psychoanalyst John Nemiah proposed the concept of “mental production of emotions.” Every person has a deficiency to varying degrees, not just alexithymics. It is difficult for some to express in words at least some experiences - while others, using metaphors, will talk about the vivid feelings that they experienced while standing in front of an expressionist painting, but at the same time they will not be able to convey what they feel in relation to a specific person.

Over the course of life, we all learn to say and show what we feel, including in the therapist’s office. A specialist helps to work through affect, that is, to translate bodily experience into images and words. As a result, a person can express in words feelings that he did not even suspect existed before. This may help him get rid of compulsive behaviors (such as overeating) that were his only way to suppress unconscious sensations.

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When working with alexithymics, cognitive-behavioral methods specially developed for them are usually used. They also use the psychodynamic approach and the mentalization method. All of them are aimed at teaching the brain to identify emotions,” comments Kirill Sychev.

Improving the mental production of emotions is useful not only for people with alexithymia, but also for any person, because it affects intellectual growth, health and quality of life in general.

To get started, you can read Paul Ekman’s book “The Psychology of Emotions. I Know How You Feel,” in which he talks about various emotions and their connection with physical sensations. You can work on the connection between the body and feelings by regularly focusing on what is happening in the body. Breathing practices and meditation are suitable for this. Try group therapy where you can see other people talking about their emotions. And in order not to forget about what feelings there are, and to highlight them in yourself, hang a huge poster on the wall with the spectrum of all emotions.