Integration and Self Healing

First published in 1993. Aexithymia is the single most common cause of poor outcome or outright failure of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The reason that this problem has escaped recognition for so long is part of the mystique and paradox of emotions. Affects are familiar to everyone. They are part of our experiences, so ordinary and common that they are equated with being human. The first part of this book is devoted to those mysterious and much studied experiences: emotions. The second part of the book concerns psychic trauma. Certain aspects of these two subjects have to be established in order to give us a broad enough view to approach the third subject: alexithymia.

Henry Krystal, M.D.

Part I: Emotions. Clinical Aspects of Affect. Affect Tolerance. Genetic View of Affects. Adolescence and Affect Development. The Model Affect. The Hedonic Element in Affectivity. Activating Aspects of Emotions. Part II: Trauma. Reality. Trauma and Affect. Self-Representation and the Capacity for Self-Care. Trauma and the Stimulus Barrier. Part III: Alexitymia and Posttraumatic States. Integration and Self-Healing in Posttraumatic States. Alexithymia. Assessing Alexithymia. Therapeutic Considerations in Alexithymia.