Have you ever felt stuck when someone asks, "How are you?"
You know you feel something, but say "fine," "stressed," or "angry." If you can't tell the difference between anxiety, sadness, or tiredness, you’re not alone.
There is a term for this: Normative Male Alexithymia.
Alexithymia means having trouble identifying and expressing feelings. It shows a gap in processing emotions.
Why is this a "male" problem?
I'ts more common in men due to cultural factors. The "normative" part means society often discourages emotional expression. Traditional views of masculinity prize toughness. They see emotions like sadness and fear as weakness.
This leads to a thinking style that focuses on external factors. Men often focus on visible things like work or status and overlook deeper emotional experiences. Feeling stressed can be tough, especially if you can’t find the right words. This makes it hard to share your feelings.
The Path to Emotional Agency
The key point is that this is a learned behaviour, not a flaw. You can unlearn it.
Alexithymia Reduction Treatment (ART) can help break these barriers and build emotional skills and techniques, like "affect labelling", which can help find the right words for feelings. This teaches you to connect what your body feels with what your mind understands.
Experts say, “teaching men to name their emotions isn’t therapy; it’s a cultural shift.” It’s a powerful way to reclaim emotional agency.
Read the articles below on how challenging these entrenched narratives can help develop greater emotional fluency and fundamentally redefine what emotional strength means. 👇