Author of the manifesto and Animi here. I was also doubtful initially when I was researching alexithymia to improve my condition. But that was gradually changing the more papers I read and the more people I talked with. There are 50+ years of research on the topic, and some papers show more than 10% of the general population with alexithymia score in the “clinical” range where it is correlated with all the associated problems. 1 in 10 actually makes a lot of sense given how prevalent and comorbid it is with mental disorders or i.e. neurodiversity - ~50% of those people are also alexithymic.
It is not always caused by trauma, though obviously, it is one of the possible factors influencing it. And even if it was caused by trauma, I don’t find that line of thinking very satisfying, because it isn’t actionable. The next step would be going to therapy to work on that trauma. But for people with alexithymia, therapy is much less effective since psychotherapy relies on being able to speak the language of emotions. And most therapists aren’t trained to work with alexithymics.
I don’t disagree that it can show as a symptom of other severe problems, but calling it a symptom is in my opinion insufficient, because without addressing the symptom it is significantly harder to address the initial severe problem, and research actually shows it exacerbates severity of mental disorder symptoms. So it’s more of a risk and mediator / moderator factor that severely influences the symptom severity and treatment outcomes, along with a host of other problems, and hence saying it “severely affects” is justified.
Sources for the claims I’m making are all in the manifesto (100+ studies linked), happy for constructive feedback and open to talking more—it is possible that I’m tunnel-visioned and somewhat biased since I’m working on a solution for it, but I’m not the only one who is thinking this way—you can read this article which makes a similar point—https://www.bhcsmt.com/blog/alexithymia-one-of-the-most-impactful-health-conditions-youve-never-heard-of
Author of the manifesto and Animi here. I was also doubtful initially when I was researching alexithymia to improve my condition. But that was gradually changing the more papers I read and the more people I talked with. There are 50+ years of research on the topic, and some papers show more than 10% of the general population with alexithymia score in the “clinical” range where it is correlated with all the associated problems. 1 in 10 actually makes a lot of sense given how prevalent and comorbid it is with mental disorders or i.e. neurodiversity - ~50% of those people are also alexithymic.
It is not always caused by trauma, though obviously, it is one of the possible factors influencing it. And even if it was caused by trauma, I don’t find that line of thinking very satisfying, because it isn’t actionable. The next step would be going to therapy to work on that trauma. But for people with alexithymia, therapy is much less effective since psychotherapy relies on being able to speak the language of emotions. And most therapists aren’t trained to work with alexithymics.
I don’t disagree that it can show as a symptom of other severe problems, but calling it a symptom is in my opinion insufficient, because without addressing the symptom it is significantly harder to address the initial severe problem, and research actually shows it exacerbates severity of mental disorder symptoms. So it’s more of a risk and mediator / moderator factor that severely influences the symptom severity and treatment outcomes, along with a host of other problems, and hence saying it “severely affects” is justified.
Sources for the claims I’m making are all in the manifesto (100+ studies linked), happy for constructive feedback and open to talking more—it is possible that I’m tunnel-visioned and somewhat biased since I’m working on a solution for it, but I’m not the only one who is thinking this way—you can read this article which makes a similar point—https://www.bhcsmt.com/blog/alexithymia-one-of-the-most-impactful-health-conditions-youve-never-heard-of