title: Alexithymia: a psychoanalytic viewpoint.
abstract: Alexithymic phenomena may result from a variety of psychological sources. Psychoanalytic observation of psychosomatic patients (and others as well) reveals that the inability to name, recognize, contain or work through one's affective states is frequently one manifestation of defensive structures of a psychotic kind (more radical than denial which deals with certain neurotic anxieties). Such massive defense has been created as a bulwark against various dangers, such as (1) psychotic anxieties (fear of mental or physical fragmentation; loss of identity-feeling; danger of uncontrollable, explosive action); (2) profound perturbation concerning the narcissistic self-image and its fluctuations, and (3) pathological formation of the ego-ideal structure concerning affective experience. All of these may contribute to the creation of alexithymic defects.
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect; D004644:Emotions; D006801:Humans; D007062:Identification, Psychological; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy; D011602:Psychophysiologic Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology