The AutSide Podcast

Episode 416: The Shape of Feeling—Alexithymia and Attunement


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Today’s episode provides a profound first-person reflection, authored by Jaime Hoerricks, PhD, on the experience of alexithymia and emotional dysregulation from an autistic GLP perspective. Dr. Hoerricks challenges the traditional diagnostic imagination, arguing that alexithymia is not the absence of feeling but rather an undivided, holistic experience of emotion (described as a “chord” or “symphony”) that resists fragmentation into simple linguistic labels. She reclaims what is often labeled as dysregulation as the body’s fidelity to sensory truth and a refusal to betray the coherence of feeling by forcing it into inadequate language, likening this pressure to a form of linguistic colonialism. She integrates several scientific citations to frame this discussion, ultimately advocating for a language of wholeness that honors silence, art, and rhythm over mandated verbal articulation of emotional states.

Here’s the link to the source article: https://open.substack.com/pub/autside/p/the-shape-of-feeling-alexithymia

Let me know what you think.

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The AutSide PodcastBy Jaime Hoerricks, PhD