I had never heard this term before. It's not a diagnosis but can be a feature of other conditions.
It's important to point out that alexithymia isn't a one-size-fits-all experience. It differs from person to person. Autistic people, for instance, experience it at a higher rate – between 33% and 66% compared to the general population.
It's also more common among people with obsessive compulsive disorder, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression. Some people have always had alexithymia whereas others acquire it through trauma.
It's important to point out that alexithymia isn't a one-size-fits-all experience. It differs from person to person. Autistic people, for instance, experience it at a higher rate – between 33% and 66% compared to the general population.
It's also more common among people with obsessive compulsive disorder, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression. Some people have always had alexithymia whereas others acquire it through trauma.
When the brain writes to memory, emotional tags are added to sensory content. For example, if we see a nice sunset, both the feelings induced; awe, and the visual imagery of that unique sunset, are saved as a composite memory of content and feeling. The value of this schema is it allows us to use both sides of the brain. The Left brain will deal with the sensory content and the Right brain the emotional valance; tag.
To explain your feelings, your ego consciousness needs to be more in left side of the brain, to help differentiate your feelings and put them to words via the sensory content. It appears those with alexithymia tend to stay more in their right brain, and therefore have less access to the other side of the brain; left, needed for proper differentiation.
The ego can move back and forth, or it can be trained to do so. This is easier for females since their brain is naturally wired side to side. This is useful for child raising where one of the many cries of a child; hungry, tired, frustrated, etc.. can induce a feeling, which then can be translated into the real time sensory need; change the diaper.
I suppose the trick is to teach people, with that condition, to learn how to migrate their ego more to the left brain; temporary. Their set point may be to the right, but learning to swing the other way, will add the details they need. This state often leads to emotional thinking; feeling leading reason, so the reason becomes self serving; justify.
One thing than can add confusion is there are fewer feeling tags, than all the possible combinations of sensory content. The feelings tend to be recycled and applied to a range of similar valance content. For example, if I asked you to list your 10 favorite foods, these can be as diverse as steak or salad. While they will all have a similar feeling of enjoyment; favorites.
If one lacks sufficient access to the left brain to differentiate, trying to explain the favorite feeling, makes it hard to nail down one of these combination to help express yourself. The logic can become merged and confused, since that one feeling appears to be all over the place showing off the whole catalog.
On the other hand, as you get better at moving back and forth, a whole catalog of relate things, but virtue of a feeling, can be integrated by a feeling; integrated thinking that can mesh a wide rational parts into an intuitive whole. This is useful for integrating science data.
