THE ALEXITHYMIC EXECUTIVE 67one study carried out among undergraduate students suggested that 8.2%
of the men and 1.8% of the women could be defi ned as having alex-
ithymic tendencies (Blanchard, Arena, and Pallmeyer, 1981 ), although
the validity and reliability of the instruments used in this particular study
are questionable. But whatever the exact proportion of alexithymics in
the general population, there is considerable confusion about the etiol-
ogy of alexithymia. Is it genetically or developmentally based? Is it a
character trait or a situation - specifi c form of coping behavior? Is it the
price that has to be paid for emotional labor and stress? Could it be both
trait and state (Von Rad, 1984 ; Ahrens and Deffner, 1986 )? No clear
answer has been found.
A number of explanations have been proposed for this kind of dis-
order — some physiological, some psychological. Researchers offering a
physiological answer see it as a defi cit in the connection between the
left and right hemispheres of the brain. They believe that something has
gone very wrong with the ‘ wiring ’ between these two parts. Research-
ers, who see the origins as more psychological in nature, point to the
person ’ s early relationships with the primary caregiver. The origin of
this behavior, the psychoanalyst Joyce McDougall speculates, is a par-
ticular style of parenting, whereby the mother tends to use the child as
a ‘ drug ’ (1974, 1980, 1982a, 1982b) and is apparently out of touch with
the child ’ s emotional needs.
Infants constantly send out signals to their mothers regarding their wants
and dislikes. Depending on her freedom from inner pressures, a mother
will normally be in close communication with her infant over these
signals. If internal distress and anxiety prevent her observing and inter-
preting her baby ’ s cries, smiles, and gestures correctly, she may, on the
contrary, do violence to the tiny communicator by imposing her own
needs and wishes, thus plunging the infant into a continuously frustrating
and rage - provoking experience. Such an eventuality runs the risk of
impelling the baby to construct, with the means at its disposal, radical
ways of protecting itself against overwhelming affect storms and subse-
quent exhaustion. (McDougall, 1989 , p. 26)Because separation is discouraged by the mother, any desire the child
shows for exploration or any form of initiative is nipped in the bud.
Predictably, this sort of treatment has grave consequences for later per-
sonality development. In alexithymic individuals, the ability to differ-
entiate and verbalize emotions never develops properly; this inability to
recognize emotions in turn impedes the construction of the highly
complex matrix of emotional signals on which we all rely for daily
functioning and without which emotions are experienced as dangerous,