Alexithymia and Circumcision Trauma.
This preliminary study investigates what role early trauma might have in alexithymia acquisition for adults by controlling for male circumcision.
People suffering from the personality trait disorder alexithymia have difficulty identifying and expressing their feelings.
They daydream less, and confuse emotions with body sensations, such as physical pain. They tend to lack imagination and intuition.
This translates into not being able to imagine what others are feeling, leading to an inability to respond to others' needs.
People with severe alexithymia are so removed from their feelings that they view themselves as being robots or automatons.
If acquired at an early age, this might limit access to language and interfere with the socialization process that begins early in life.
Moderate to high alexithymia can interfere with personal relationships and hinder therapy.
A number of studies have shown an alexithymia prevalence for adults at less than ten percent, while one study revealed that 28 percent of men were alexithymic. Alexithymia is not classified as a mental disorder in the DSM-IV.
Neonatal trauma has been associated with alexithymia, dissociation, aggressive behaviour, and suicide; and alexithymia has been associated with life expectancy, being male, dissociation, aggressive behaviour, childhood, and sexual abuse; thus creating a plausible connection between early trauma and alexithymia.
Knowing if alexithymia might be acquired from early traumas such as circumcision could be valuable for a number of reasons.
It would...
(a) help to explain why some groups of men have alexithymia levels higher than women;
(b) lead to a better understanding of normal alexithymia levels for men;
(c) provide alexithymic men with new insights into their behaviour;
(d) assist parents deliberating about circumcision for their son;
(e) provide new information in what role early trauma has on the development of children.
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