Personifying character traits helps one more fully understand the behaviours in question. This is why Sigmund Freud employed classical images of Oedipus, Electra or Narcissus in his psychoanalytic writings. Of this practice, psychologist James Hillman advises that: Mythology is psychology in ancient dress, and psychology (with it's 'case stories') is mythology in modern dress! Interestingly, we moderns see it as demeaning to be likened to a DSM-styled pathology, whereas the ancients thought it impressive to find themselves in the likeness of some God, Goddess or hero, no matter how fallible the character! Perhaps this is what Carl Jung was getting at when he said ‘To serve a mania is detestable, but to serve a god is full of meaning’. With this in mind the following characters drawn from mythology and film serve to personify important aspects of alexithymia.
APOLLO
Apollo was the Greek God of detached observation and intellectual elucidation, a personality trait having similarities with the cognitive style of those with alexithymia. In classical myth Apollo is considered the antithesis of Dionysus, the God of emotional involvement.
According to Clinical Professor of Psychiatry Jean Shinoda-Bolen, “Individuals who resemble Apollo have difficulties that are related to emotional distance, such as communication problems, and the inability to be intimate… It is paradoxical that the God of clarity, and the man who can speak so precisely and clearly about an impersonal subject is so sparing of words about feelings and so obscure and difficult to interpret when he does say something about himself…. Rapport with another person is hard for the Apollo man. He prefers to access (or judge) the situation or the person from a distance, not knowing that he must “get close up” –be vulnerable and empathic- in order to truly know someone else…. Objectively, the woman who is married to an Apollo man may appear to have little to complain about. He’s even-tempered, dependable, and faithful, and he probably even pitches in and helps around the house when he’s there. People think well of him; he’s probably successful in their eyes, and a good man. Many women married to Apollos consider themselves fortunate indeed. But if the woman wants a deeper, more personal relationship, then there are difficulties. She may complain of loneliness because he is emotionally distant … [and] if she wants more spontaneity or passion, this man cannot provide it. A woman married to an Apollo man may find herself becoming more and more like him if she follows his lead, especially if she too values thinking over feeling…. But just the opposite can occur if she is someone who laughs and cries easily and is often emotional and expressive of her feelings…. She may become increasingly irrational or hysterical as he withdraws further. Her efforts are provocative and usually unsuccessful. She is trying to get him to react emotionally, by her tears or her anger, her threats or accusations. But all that results is that he gets more cool and rational and draws further away, and she becomes increasingly out of control." [From ‘Gods in Everyman’ 1990]
Apollo's character shows a specialization of intellect or intellectualization which can be said to constitute a defense mechanism whereby problems are analyzed in remote, intellectual terms while emotion, affect, and feeling are ignored. Furthermore Apollo's character, which according to James Hillman is made up, of "detachment, dispassion, exclusive masculinity, clarity, formal beauty, farsighted aims, and elitism" [Re-visioning 1975] can be said to lack psychological mindedness. Hillman writes:
In short, this intellectualization, absence of feeling, and lack of psychological mindedness inherent in descriptions of Apollo can be seen in the profile of those with alexithymia.
CASSANDRA
According to the Greek myth, Apollo cursed Cassandra to be disbelieved whenever she told the truth, and for this reason Cassandra has been proposed as a personification capturing some issues facing partners of alexithymic individuals, in particular the issue of being disbelieved when attempting to reveal the emotional deprivation they experience. Therefore when Cassandra would mention that Apollo had cursed her visions to be disbelieved, others could not accept that the God of logical thought and virtue might be the cause of Cassandra's problems. But in truth Apollo had actually fallen in love with the mortal Cassandra, and when she rejected his overtures he secretly cursed her (to be disbelieved) and then feigned that the reason for her punishment was that she had made some small infringement of his rules.
According to Jean Shinoda-Bolen, "This attraction of opposites seems to exert a magnetic pull, when -like the God who loved Cassandra- an Apollo man is drawn towards a psychic woman who is emotional, irrational, impractical, and often unimpressed with him. He finds her fascinating, frustrating, and unpredictable. Many Apollo men are drawn to such women whom they try and control."
"The woman who rejects the handsome, virtuous, dependable Apollo man usually does so because he lacks qualities that are essential for her, such as depth and intensity, or emotional closeness, or sexual sponteneity...
Apollo men are rejected by women who want a deeper bond, with more intensity and emotional expressiveness, than he can provide. The integrity in which an Apollo man may live out his precepts or live up to his agreements draw admiration and respect, rather than love or passion. Women who are aware of these priorities will not choose him to begin with, or, on discovering what is lacking, may reject him as a lover."
"A streak of cruelty, exercised within legal rights, can be the nasty side of the Apollo man who has been humiliated and dominated by someone else and now identifies with the aggressor. When he defeats a rival, he shows no mercy, and instead cooly skins him alive. Similarly, Apollo punished Cassandra, to whom he had given the gift of seeing into the future, by decreeing that she would never be believed. This punishment was both creative and cruel, especially because she could forsee a series of tragedies she was helpless to avert. She suffered doubly, anticipating what she knew was coming, and then living through it."
[From ‘Gods in Everyman’ by Jean Shinoda-Bolen]
Jungian analyst Laurie Layton-Schapira writes that the Cassandra woman, "feels attacked not only from the outside world but also from within, especially from the body in the form of somatic, often gynaecological, complaints. Normal aches and pains are built up into fatal diseases in her mind. The woman falls prey to all sorts of paranoid ideations which may contain a grain of truth but cannot be reality tested. What the Cassandra woman sees here is something dark and painful that may not be apparent on the surface of things or that objective facts do not corroborate. She may envision a negative or unexpected outcome; or something which would be difficult to deal with ; or a truth which others, especially authority figures, would not accept. In her frightened, ego-less state, the Cassandra woman may blurt out what she sees, perhaps with the unconscious hope that others might be able to make some sense of it. But to them her words sound meaningless, disconnected and blown out of all proportion. No wonder she is not believed. She cannot even afford to believe herself; her ego cannot accept what her shadow knows." [p. 65. The Cassandra Complex: Living with Disbelief- Published 1988].
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ECHO
Echo the forest nymph was punished by the Gods for some perceived misdeed, being rendered mute with the exception that she was allowed to repeat the final words of a sentence uttered by another, hence her name Echo.
Unlike alexithymic individuals, Echo was aware of her feelings and what she wanted to say to others, but relied on others to speak first in order to express them, as for instance when she heard the lost Narcissus, the youth she loved, wandering through her forest crying “Is anybody here?” she replied “here” in return. Amazed, Narcissus looked all around for the voice, and yelled “Come!” and “Come” she calls him calling. He looks behind him and, seeing no one coming, calls again: “Why do you run from me?” and hears in answer his own words again. He stands still, deceived by the answering voice, and cries “Here let us meet”. Echo, never to answer another sound more gladly, cried: “Let us meet”.
Echo’s exploitation of Narcissus words superficially reminds of the alexithymic person’s reliance on others to formulate appropriate feelings in words, which can then be ‘borrowed’ by the alexithymic person to use as their own. According to Henry Krystal alexithymic persons cannot “assume responsibility for organizing and composing their thoughts” and therefore tend to defer this function to others.
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DR. SPOCK
Dr. Spock from the hit TV series Star Trek was born on the planet Vulcan, whose inhabitants relied on intellect and logic and not on feelings, when interacting with others. For this reason Dr. Spock sometimes finds himself in perplexing situations -like an alexithymic person does- of being unable to understand the meaning of feelings in himself or others.
The leader of the Starship Enterprise Captain Kirk, himself a feeling person, at times showed frustration at Spock’s inability to appreciate feelings-based communication, as in the following example: Kirk: "You're half human Spock, don't you have any god damn feelings? Sometimes a feeling, Mr. Spock, is all we humans have to go on. Will you try for one moment to feel, at least act like you've got a heart?"
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THE TIN MAN
The Tin Man from the movie Wizard of Oz was a humble wood-cutter who had lost his ability to feel, and would sometimes lament “Oh, if I only had a heart.” After teaming up with Dorothy, the Cowardly Loin and the Scarecrow, the Tin Man vowed to go on a journey to find himself a new heart in order that he might feel feelings again.
As occasionally said of the alexithymic person, the Tin Man resembled a “human robot” with a stiff posture and intellectual approach to life, in which he had to chop his wood and think his thoughts without input from a human heart. Being made of metal, he was also restricted in his movements and would sometimes become frozen stiff with rust. Overall he had a good heart and tried to be helpful and dependable for his companions where he could.
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