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Understanding alexithymia within a psychoanalytical framework.

Gérard Pirlot¹, Maurice Corcos

¹Service pedopsychiatrie, Institut M. Monsouris, 42 Boulevard Jourdan, 75014, Paris, France. pirlotg@aol.com

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|January 3, 2013

Summary

This paper defines alexithymia using metapsychology, linking operational thinking and negative hallucination to its development. It explores the genesis of alexithymia through Andrè Green's psychoanalytic concepts.

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Area of Science:

Psychiatry
Psychology
Psychosomatic Medicine

Background:

Alexithymia is a concept in psychopathology and medicine, related to operational thinking.
Psychoanalytic theory, particularly Marty's 'operative thinking', offers a framework.
Andrè Green's metapsychology provides tools to understand alexithymia's origins.

Purpose of the Study:

To define alexithymia using metapsychology.
To explore the genesis of operational thinking and alexithymia.
To link negative hallucination to the development of alexithymia.

Main Methods:

Metapsychological analysis of alexithymia.
Application of Andrè Green's psychoanalytic concepts.
Examination of the relationship between maternal negative hallucination and alexithymia.

Main Results:

Alexithymia can be defined metapsychologically through operational thinking and negative hallucination.
Maternal negative hallucination creates a psychic structure influencing object representation.
This process can pathologically involve the internal perception of affect in alexithymia.

Conclusions:

Freudian metapsychology, enhanced by Green, offers a framework for understanding alexithymia.
Negative hallucination plays a crucial role in the genesis of alexithymia.
Alexithymia involves a defensive, pathological alteration of affect perception.