Alexithymia in the mirror of developmental experiences

Abstract

This article presents alexithymia’s problems of recognising and expressing one's own emotions and recognising the emotions of others in the light of early developmental experiences. The authors constructed a quantitative study that focused on possible links between alexithymia, attachment style, and experience in object relations. The survey was conducted in an online environment. The results (N = 323) confirm that dysfunctional attachment experiences and inappropriate object relations in early childhood are associated with a certain degree of alexithymia. Statistically significant associations were found between timid, preoccupied and avoidant attachment styles and alexithymia. The results indicate that persons with more pronounced alexithymia exhibit more disturbed object relations in all dimensions, especially in the dimension of dependence and alienation, where the highest correlation coefficients were found. This research confirmed that persons with psychotherapy experience exhibit fewer alexithymic elements – on the facet of identification of emotion no differences were found –, we also found statistically significant differences between lay people and psychotherapists (including specialists) on all factors.