A person who doesn't express feelings is often called alexithymic, meaning they struggle to identify and describe emotions, but they can also be described as reserved, stoic, unemotional, inexpressive, detached, or stolid, though these terms have slightly different connotations, with alexithymia being a specific difficulty with emotional processing rather than just withholding.
Alexithymia is the name for cases where people struggle to feel, identify, and vocalize their emotions. There is no clinical diagnosis for alexithymia, as it's not considered to be a mental health condition. Instead, experts suggest that alexithymia is a personality trait.
deadpan detached dispassionate impassive matter-of-fact unemotional.
Generally, when people struggle with expressing emotions, it's because they've attributed meaning to their feelings. They don't like the meaning. And therefore they don't like the emotion. We learn to attach meaning to emotions because our families and parents teach us to do so. Try expressing your emotions privately.
Anhedonia is a common symptom of depression and shows up in a lot of mental health conditions. Losing the ability to feel or express emotions can be a sign of other mental health conditions like psychosis, trauma, or autism.
Schizoid personality disorder is one of many personality disorders. It can cause individuals to seem distant and emotionless, rarely engaging in social situations or pursuing relationships with other people.
It has been described in multiple disorders including Alzheimer's disease, frontotemporal dementia, Huntington's disease, major depressive disorder, Parkinson's Disease, schizophrenia, cerebrovascular disease, traumatic brain injury, and vascular dementia [5].
Having emotions is healthy and normal. However, people with ADHD may struggle to know how to react to their feelings. According to research, emotional dysregulation is more often observed in people with ADHD than those without it.
Know the 5 signs of Emotional Suffering
Don't Try to 'Fix' Them
It is not your responsibility to 'fix' someone who is emotionally unavailable. While you can and should voice your concerns and set clear boundaries, avoid demanding change or issuing ultimatums since this can reinforce their emotional unavailability.
Schizoid personality disorder. People with this disorder are often cold, distant, introverted, and have an intense fear of intimacy and closeness. People with schizoid personality disorder are absorbed in their own thinking and daydreaming. Because of this, they exclude themselves from attachment to people and reality.
The term callous-unemotional (CU) refers to a constellation of personality traits that include blunted affect, lack of empathy and remorse, uncaring behavior and disregard for others' feelings and well-being (1–4). CU traits have received increased attention in the last decades.
unsympathetic. ADJECTIVE. without agreement in feeling. aloof apathetic callous cruel disinterested indifferent insensitive lukewarm unconcerned unpleasant unresponsive. WEAK.
Alexithymia is a relative inability to perceive, identify, and express emotions. It is a personality trait associated with some forms of psychopathology, associated with the use of immature psychological defense mechanisms and also associated with the use of distraction as a coping mechanism [18].
Emotional avoidance is a coping mechanism where someone avoids feelings, thoughts or discussions related to their trauma. This can manifest as a reluctance to discuss the trauma or a complete shutdown of emotions, often leading others to perceive them as emotionally non-expressive.
The ADHD "30% Rule" is a guideline suggesting that executive functions (like self-regulation, planning, and emotional control) in people with ADHD develop about 30% slower than in neurotypical individuals, meaning a 10-year-old might function more like a 7-year-old in these areas, requiring adjusted expectations for maturity, task management, and behavior. It's a tool for caregivers and adults with ADHD to set realistic goals, not a strict scientific law, helping to reduce frustration by matching demands to the person's actual developmental level (executive age) rather than just their chronological age.
As a Psychologist With ADHD, Here Are 6 Things That Get On Our...
The 20-minute rule for ADHD is a productivity strategy to overcome task paralysis by committing to work on a task for just 20 minutes, leveraging the brain's need for dopamine and short bursts of focus, making it easier to start and build momentum, with the option to stop or continue after the timer goes off, and it's a variation of the Pomodoro Technique, adapted for ADHD's unique challenges like time blindness. It helps by reducing overwhelm, providing a clear starting point, and creating a dopamine-boosting win, even if you only work for that short period.
What causes apathy? Poor self-esteem, a tragic or traumatic event, trouble adjusting to a new circumstance, feeling overwhelmed or burned out, and feeling stuck are all reasons you may be struggling with apathy. Although apathy on its own is not a diagnosable mental health condition, it may be a symptom of one.
Updated on August 15, 2022. Flat affect is the near or total absence of typical emotional responses. It is associated with several conditions, including autism, schizophrenia, and depression. The exact cause of this symptom is unknown, but treating the underlying condition can help address it.
In the New Testament, James reveals the problem of spiritual apathy when he says, “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (James 4:17). Notice that the problem is not ignorance, since he knows what to do, but apathy—he doesn't care. To get comfortable.
Apathy has been associated with damage to multiple areas of the brain, including the frontal lobe, basal ganglia, and cingulate gyrus. Blockade of dopamine pathways also appear to play a role.