Abstract
Unable to Describe My Feelings and Emotions Without an Addiction: The Interdependency Between Alexithymia and Addictions.
Highlights
Alexithymia (from the greek alεxiqυmίa: a-(a) = absence, lέxiς = word, qυmός = emotion) is a specific form of emotional dysregulation, characterized by difficulty in identifying, describing, and communicating emotions as well as in discriminating one’s own emotional experiences from the underlying ‘physiological activation’ [1]
Alexithymia has been demonstrated to be closely related to the concept of emotional intelligence [5, 6] and an inverse relationship exists between alexithymia levels and the ability to be resilient to negative life events [7]
Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain the neurobiological basis of alexithymia in addiction, from an aberrant hypothalamicpituitary-adrenal axis functioning associated with chronic stress, to the lack of interoceptive and emotional awareness which may prevent effective emotion regulation and lead an individual to use a substance addiction as a coping strategy to alleviate distress [26,27,28,29]
Summary
Competing hyperarousal and hypoarousal models of alexithymia have been proposed [2]. Individuals with alexithymia may display poorly regulated emotions due to a state of hyperarousal related to the deficits in identifying and/or describing one’s own emotions, or in adequately reacting to or modulating them [3]. Some authors argue that a hypoarousal model (e.g. characterized by a low autonomic arousal) may explain the increased risk of substance abuse amongst alexithymic subjects [2, 4]. According to the hypoarousal model, alexithymic subjects are more prone to use substances in an attempt to optimize these inherently low arousal levels [2, 4]. Individuals with alexithymia appear to have difficulties in
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