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Low emotional/empathic quotient or alexithymia.<ref>Emotional Intelligence, and Alexithymia are found to be independent but highly overlapping constructs, and are inversely scored. See- Parker, J.D.A., Taylor, G.J. and Bagby, R.M (2001) 'The relationship between emotional intelligence and alexithymia' Journal of Personality and Individual Differences 30, 107-115</ref>

History

Disorders such as depression, eating disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder, personality disorder, and substance abuse disorder in which the same low emotional intelligence or alexithymia found in Asperger's Syndrome was also found to have high prevalence in these disorders. <ref>Alexithymia is thought to affect 10% of the overall population (Linden, W., Wen, F., Paulhaus, D. L. (1994) Measuring alexithymia: reliability, validity, and prevalence. In: J. Butcher, C. Spielberger, (Eds.). Advances in Personality Assessment. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.). Alexithymia has a representative prevalence of 85% in autistic spectrum disorders (Hill, E., Berthoz, S., & Frith, U (2004) ‘Brief report: cognitive processing of own emotions in individuals with autistic spectrum disorder and in their relatives.’ Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 34, 2, 229-235), 40% in posttraumatic stress disorder (Shipko, S., Alvarez, A., & Noviello, N. (1983). Towards a Teological Model of Alexithymia: Alexithymia and Post–Traumatic Stress Disorder. Psychotherapy & Psychosomatics, 39, 122–126), 63% anorexia nervosa and 56% in bulimia (Cochrane, C.E., Brewerton, T.D., Wilson, D.B. & Hodges, E.L. (1993) ‘Alexithymia in eating disorders.’ International Journal of Eating Disorders 14, 219-222) , 45% in major depressive disorder (Honkalampi, K., Hintikka, J., Laukkanen, E., Lehtonen, J. and Viinamäki, H. (2001) ‘Alexithymia and depression: a prospective study of patients with major depressive disorder.’ Journal of Psychosomatics 42, 229-234), 34% in panic disorder (Cox BJ, Swinson RP, Shulman ID, Bourdeau D (1995): Alexithymia in panic disorder and social phobia. Comprehensive Psychiatry 36/8:195-198), and 50% in substance abusers (Taylor, G.J., Parker, J.D.A., & Bagby, R.M. (1990) ‘A preliminary investigation of alexithymia in men with psychoactive substance dependence.’ American Journal of Psychiatry 147, 1228-1230). Alexithymia is further linked with schizotypal, dependent, avoidant, and borderline personality disorders, as well as psychosomatic disorders such as migraine headaches, lower back pain, irritable bowel syndrome, asthma, nausea, allergy, hypertension or fibromyalgia (Taylor, G.J., Bagby, R.M. and Parker, J.D.A. (1997) Disorders of Affect Regulation: Alexithymia in medical and psychiatric illness. Cambridge University Press).</ref>

Description

Low emotional intelligence or alexithymia has been linked with deficts in the ability to be empathetically attuned to others.<ref>Moriguchi, Y., Decety, J., Ohnishi, T., Maeda, M., Matsuda, H., & Komaki, G. Empathy and judging other’s pain: An fMRI study of alexithymia. Cerebral Cortex (2007); Bird, J., Silani, G., Brindley, R., Singer, T., Frith, U., and Frith, C. Alexithymia In Autistic Spectrum Disorders: and fMRI Investigation (2006)</ref> Also, this lack of empathetic attunement contributes to a de-sophistication of emotional interaction in which many of the subtle emotional signals and nuances are not perceived by the sufferer,<ref>Taylor, G. J. Bagby, R. M., Parker. D.A., Disorders of Affect Regulation Cambridge (1997)</ref>
A second issue related to alexithymia involves the inability to identify and therewith modulate strong emotions such as sadness or anger, which leaves the alexithymic individual prone to “sudden affective outbursts such as crying or rage”<ref>Nemiah, C.J., Freyberger, H., & Sifneos, P.E., ‘Alexithymia: A View of the Psychosomatic Process’ in O.W.Hill (1970) (ed), Modern Trends in Psychosomatic Medicine, Vol-2, p.432-33; Krystal, H. Integration and Self-Healing: Affect, Trauma, Alexithymia (1988), p. 246; McDougall, J. Theaters of the Mind 1985, p.169-70; Taylor, G.J, Parker, J.D.A., & Bagby, R.M. Disorders of Affect Regulation- Alexithymia in Medical and Psychiatric Illness (1997), p.246-47</ref>

Low emotional intelligence or alexithymia has been recognized by clinical research as reducing marital satisfaction<ref>Yelsma, P., Marrow, S. - 'An Examination of Couples' Difficulties With Emotional Expressiveness and Their Marital Satisfaction' in Journal of Family Communication 3 (2003) p.41-62 [1835]</ref>, increasing the risk of domestic abuse between couples<ref>Winters, J., Clift, R. J. W., & Dutton, D. G. - Emotional Intelligence and Domestic Abuse' in Journal of Family Violence 19 (2004) p. 255-267 [1836]</ref>, and reducing the emotional quality of a relationship<ref>Brackett et al - 'Emotional Intelligence and Relationship Quality Among Couples' in Personal Relationships, 12 (2005) p.197-212 [1837]</ref>, although it is possible in the latter example for a partner with higher emotional intelligence to qualitatively compensate for a partner with low emotional intelligence.

References