BBC article: 'What Is It Like To Have Never Felt An Emotion?'

[Triton]

BBC article 'What Is It Like To Have Never Felt An Emotion?' was released today:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150818-what-is-it-like-to-have-never-felt-an-emotion


I'm curious, what did we all think of it - does the author do a good job of describing alexithymia, or is your experience of it different?

[B. Angele Harnesberry-Kunkowski]

This is how misinformation gets spread. He doesn't cover fabricating emotions in social situations, he doesn't cover the disconnect between bodily sensations, and what most people call emotion. I like the part at the end where he talks about love being a conscious decision, though to would have been nice if the author would have elaborated more on how different Alex's shave varied symptoms. I didn't like that he only used one person. That was disconcerting because allot of our symptoms are similar and allot are different. It's not true that we don't have emotions, they just aren't emotions like neurotypicals experience. When I am happy it is a logical decision to be happy, when I am sad it is a logical decision to be sad. That doesn't mean I don't have emotions. I don't like how Alex's are portrayed as constantly even keeled. Some of us get very excited about the most random things...like solving a problem... Even though things that most neurotypicals experience excitement over don't really register emotionally. Ugh, I don't like how the author did this at all. He romanticizes alexathymia and portrays it with a one-sided perspective. In reality the expression of alexathymia is much more dynamic than his article seems to convey.

[Gabriel Z.]

I agree. You just need to look at the etymology for the word "alexithymia"; no words for emotions. Or you could just look up the first sentences on wikipedia to find that it is untrue that alexes don't feel emotions: "[...] inability to identify and describe emotions in the self [...]". To not be able to identify emotions does not equate with not having or feeling emotions.

Using one person for an article? That's pretty bad. Maybe he couldn't find another person? Still, he's a journalist, and this is a pretty grave error. If I had to write an article about alexithymia I wouldn't stop at just one interviewee. If I couldn't find another person, then either I'd be lazy or just not interested in the whole picture.

The truth is that whatever neurological disorder you look at, there is always a huge difference between what symptoms the sufferers are having. I believe BBC Horizon ran a documentary on autism a while back that concluded that we're all on the autistic spectrum. A pretty stark contrast between that documentary and this article.

We all agree and disagree on what we think or feel alexithymia is, and I think that's fine. Reality isn't as clear-cut as some would like it to be, humans are complex, reality is complex. We're not identical computer programs.

I'm saddened to say this, but this article would have fit better in the daily mail.

2015-08-20 0:13 GMT+02:00 B. Angele Harnesberry-Kunkowski <ospread...@gmail.com>:

This is how misinformation gets spread. He doesn't cover fabricating emotions in social situations, he doesn't cover the disconnect between bodily sensations, and what most people call emotion. I like the part at the end where he talks about love being a conscious decision, though to would have been nice if the author would have elaborated more on how different Alex's shave varied symptoms. I didn't like that he only used one person. That was disconcerting because allot of our symptoms are similar and allot are different. It's not true that we don't have emotions, they just aren't emotions like neurotypicals experience. When I am happy it is a logical decision to be happy, when I am sad it is a logical decision to be sad. That doesn't mean I don't have emotions. I don't like how Alex's are portrayed as constantly even keeled. Some of us get very excited about the most random things...like solving a problem... Even though things that most neurotypicals experience excitement over don't really register emotionally. Ugh, I don't like how the author did this at all. He romanticizes alexathymia and portrays it with a one-sided perspective. In reality the expression of alexathymia is much more dynamic than his article seems to convey.

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[CalebC]

Obligatory disclosure: I'm one of the interviewed people for the piece, so I may have a bias.

"This is how misinformation gets spread."

Sorry that this was your take away.  While I'm going to try to address your stated concerns, I can see where you are coming from with this.  As this discussion group demonstrates, you could fill a large textbook with aspects of alex and you would still not cover all the possibilities.  The question then is how much is reasonable for a single article versus what is the minimum amount that must be said to accurately describe alex.  In this instance, the author used my experiences and manifestation of alex as the main example, so the representation is skewed toward what alex is like for me.

"He doesn't cover fabricating emotions in social situations"

Agreed.  I considered several times after the interview that there was a large number of things that we didn't cover, with some being reasonably simple (like lacking intuitive emotional affect leads to faking it to fit in) to more complex (the lack of spontaneous imagination versus directed imagination and the reduced benefits of sleep).  Some of these have been written about in other articles available online, but not all.

" he doesn't cover the disconnect between bodily sensations, and what most people call emotion."

How would you describe this?

"the author would have elaborated more on how different Alex's shave varied symptoms."

He hinted at this with the inclusion of a primary and a secondary alex as well as talking about how the disconnect appears to occur at different points for different alexes.  However, because he was using a broad brush to cover the main aspects, it can be hard to see how varied the individual experience can be.  aka he described a couple of categories but didn't talk about the variation within the broad categories.

"I didn't like that he only used one person."

He posted that he was looking for someone to interview in this group and I think I was the only one to respond.  Maybe he would have done multiple interviews if more people had offered to take part.  From the time of his initial request for interviewees to publishing was a little over a week.  He did use the experience of Patrick Dust (a secondary) as well as mine (a primary), but that is only looking at the difference in the broadest distinction within alexes.

"It's not true that we don't have emotions, they just aren't emotions like neurotypicals experience."

This is an issue that is made more complex by the disparate way that most alexes come to an understanding of what it means to experience emotions (in a n academic sense).  Despite most of us at some point delving into the psychology literature, there isn't a common vocabularly for what it is like to experience emotion without experiencing it in the way neurotypicals do.  The emphasis on the even keeled reaction to strong emotional states comes from it being the most significant difference between alexes and neurotypicals.  He does talk about how alexes have different degrees to which they experience emotions, with some having no conscious experience and others having conscious experience but no ability to put words to the experience.

"In reality the expression of alexathymia is much more dynamic than his article seems to convey."

I agree on much if not all of your critic, but I think that addressing all of your points would require writing a book.  I would recommend rereading the piece as I think he tried to address a number of your concerns as well as possible with the space of the article.

[Jennifer Jacobs]

It may not have covered everything (and frankly an article like that is never going to cover everything of something this complex and individual) but it did cover enough for a friend to think to pass it to me and for me to recognise in it a large part of myself that I haven't had a clear label for beyond assuming it was just part of being on the Autistic Spectrum.

[Emma Reynolds]

I am a journalist in Australia writing about the same topic and would love to talk to anyone who would like to add their thoughts and experiences to public coverage. If you're interesting please email emma.r...@news.com.au

Thanks!

[kurokawa8]

The idea about abnormally dense connections between the right and left hemispheres resulting in noisy signals was new to me.  Very interesting.  It might explain the paradox of apparent hyper-emotionalism with some alexithymics.  I think this is the abstract of the study in question:  http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hbm.22879/abstract  

My biggest criticism of the article would be the potential misrepresentation of alexithymics being robotic and emotionless; to have "never felt an emotion", emotional numbness, emotional blindness.  Some alexithymics experience emotional numbness in this way.  This tends to be the "hook" in discussing alexithymia in pop culture; robot people.

The problem I have with this robotic characterization is that it dismisses the potential agony of alexithymia; the inability to discharge emotional energy, hypersensitivity, somatic disorders, digestive disorders, fatigue, the terrible social toll it takes, etc.  Alexithymics like this can and do feel the physical arousal of emotion but cannot understand, express, or discharge it, hardly a robotic or "numb" state.  The robotic characterization implies alexithymics are impervious to emotional static, which at least in my case is not true at all.  Articles like this that feed the "robotic" alexithymia characterization hurt me; how will anyone ever understand or even believe my situation? 

Yes, the author belies the robotic characterization in the body of the article by mentioning somatic disorders and unresolved emotional energy but these symptoms are not illustrated as starkly as Caleb's numbness.  I think he devotes a paragraph to someone with fibromyalgia but it does not represent alexithymic suffering very well.  I think I would have included an alexithymic "sufferer's" perspective.

[Muhammad Ali]

The article was an eye opener for me as I was unaware of this particular problem that I was having. I was mixing it with social anxiety. Now, I realize there is another dimension to it. I do not know how to asses what is my position and how I can get help.

The article was informative though I may not agree to some part of it.

[Sarah A]

I really really liked the article because it described my teenage son to a T. I was very worried about him because he doesn't seem to feel (or at least show that he feels) any emotions. I was especially bothered because my son moved out because he said he preferred to be alone and he said he doesn't miss me or his brother. I ask him if he loves me and he says yes but then he doesn't want me to hug him, kiss him or do any of the things that people do when they love someone, like tell me about his life (now that he is living alone) or like it when I want to cook for him or just generally take care of him. Mostly he just says he doesn't miss me or having any other people with him, he has no friends and he says he likes to be alone. He goes to school online and he doesn't see anyone the whole day long and he says he doesn't miss seeing people, he likes to be alone. The thing is he is a teenager, not a hermit who has lived a long life and is tired of life and people, just he is an older teenager.

[ammoosaa]

I'm in a similar position to your son. Now that I live on my own now my mum calls every day and tells me she misses me and is waiting for me to visit when lockdown ends. I say "I miss you too" because it's the polite thing to say, but I'm not sure I even know what "missing" someone means.

The only sense in which I can honestly say I miss her is the absence of freshly cooked food, same day laundry and a constantly spotless home.

Where I differ from him, perhaps because I'm older, is that I do need company at home. I have a girlfriend who does what my mum used to do, though not as well, AND has sex with me. I feel better than ever.

But my positive feelings are not contingent on my girlfriend, but on the physical sensations she gives me: good food, clean clothes, a clean home, sex, a soft warm body to hold on a cold night. If she were replaced by someone else who gave me the same physical sensations, I wouldn't feel any difference.

I understand I probably come off as a cold arsehole. But my girlfriend wouldn't say so. We have a mutually beneficial relationship. Who cares that I don't really think she's special? So long as I simulate that she is we could be together forever.