New Trends in Experimental and Clinical Psychiatry . Vol. XlII. No.
3/97: 159-160
Alexithymia considered as a survival 01 an archaic structure 01
language. Importance 01 Bruno Snell's theories
H. PÉREZ-RINCON
SUMMARY: Sifneos' "alexithymia", Stoudemire's "soma-
tothymia", Hoppe's "symbolexia" and Ikemi & Ikemi's
"alexysomia" are concepts which compel us to consider the
evolutive process which leads from the corporeal experien-
ce to the creation of a mental universe in a progressive me-
taphorization studied by Bruno Snell, Romolo Rossi and
Jacqueline de Romilly, among others. The man of the Ho-
meric times did not ha ve a very clear representation of his
inner life because he did not ha ve a conceptual scaffold for
describing it.
The words that in the European languages now de-
scribe psychological and mental activities referred for
many centuries to mere corporeal organs. As Sappho in
her famous poem, the alexithymic of today can only ex-
press his suffering through the corporeallanguage and the
panic attack.
The evolution of the expressive capacity towards a ver-
bal level permitted the creation of a world of symboliza-
tion and phantasy to which the alexithymic can hardly ac.
cede because he is anchored in a concrete thought: la pen-
sée opératoire (Marty and De M'Uzan). Bruno Snell's
theories and his followers may help to understand the
alexithymic phenomenon from a different point of view.
REy WORDS:Alexithyrnia, archaic language, Bruno
Snell's theories.
The introduction of the concept of alexithymia
by Sifneos (Sifneos, 1973) has been undoubtedly
one of the most original contributions of the psy-
chopathology of this century. The abundant bi-
bliography it has generated, specially the con-
cepts of SOOudemire'ssomatothymia: "the pheno-
menon of utiJizing somatic language 00communi-
cate psychological distress" (Stoudemire, 1991);
Hoppe's symbolexia: "the verbalization of expres-
sive-creative persons of their presentational sym-
bolization and imagery of the right hemisphere
Department 01 Psychiatry and Mental Health. Facu'!y 01 Medicine National Auto.
nomous University 01 Mexico and Mexlcan Instltute 01 Psychlalry. Calzada Méxl.
co-Xoctumilco No. 101, Col. San Lorenzo Hwpulco. Delegación Tlalpan. MexlCO.
DF. C.P. 14370, Mexlco.
.--
transformed via COrpUScallosum 00 the left hemi-
sphere" (Hoppe, 1988), and Ikemi & Ikemi's
alexysomia: "a difficulty in the awareness and ex-
pression of bodily feelings" (Ikemi and Ikemi,
1986) enrich the possihility of a r::ant~mpor:1!'J'
psychiatric theorization of the epistemologic
"mind-body" problem in terms oflevels oflangua-
ge. The difficulty in distinguishing between "emo-
tions" (verbal constructs) and somatic experien-
ces, the impossibility to use the verbal level and
trascend the mere corporeallanguage, which cha-
!"acterizes alexithymia, remits us 00 the work.s -
somewhat forgotten - of Bruno Snell (Snell, 1930,
1961, 1962, 1981), which can provide us with very
useful OOolsfor the comprehension ofthe alexithy-
mic phenomenon under a particular point of view.
In his work, Die Entdeckung des Geistes (The Di-
scovery ofthe Mind, 1948), this author clearly de-
monstrated that in the Homeric world man's
inner life still did not have a recognized existence.
Interiority and exteriority were mixed. Man was
formed by a plurality of aspirations more or less
localized in his body, which did not constitute an
spiritual entity. There was not a clear representa-
tion of his inner life beca use there was not a con-
ceptual scaffold 00 describe it. The feelings men-
tioned at that time are only those of suffering and
pleasure, both of them closer 00 a physical reac-
tion than to sentiments. Snell and the authors
who have followed his paths, Claus (Claus, 1981),
Rossi (Rossi, 1986) and De Romilly (De Romilly,
1991>, have insisted that the words which in the
European languages now describe primar<j men-
tal activities, in the Homcric language they indi-
cated organs of the body, perfectly material enti-
ties; the difficulties of the translators to make
comprehensible 00 the modern, Occidental man,
ofwhom the duality mind-body is a realit.y (almo-
st a necessity in spite of the monist efforts of a
certain neurophilosophy), the text previous 00the
159
 H. Pérez.Rincón
metaphorization process which \vould progressi-
vely conduct to the construction of the mental
world arise from this fact.
Romolo Rossi (Rossi, 1986) has thus analy-
zed the famous and often translated poem of
Sappho, "To a girlfriend", and has discovered
that the original version - once the psychologi-
cal aggregates of the translators have been
stripped off - only describes a series of corporeal
manifestations: heart frequency and rhythm dy-
sfunctions, aphony, word articulation dysfunc-
tion, vasomotor dysfunctions, visual deficit, rin-
ging in the ears, sweating, tremor, paleness, glo-
bal alteration of the coenesthesia, which preci-
~ely ccnstitute the description of the panic at-
tack of the modern classifications, elective area
in which the presence of alexithymia is descri-
bed in the international bibliography.
In a similar manner, the alexithymic subject
cannot situate in the level of verbal language
his emotional personal experiences (Erlebnis);
they stay within him linked and reduced to the
bodily expression as if he would be, mutatis mu-
tandis, in a certain way, a fossil of the Homeric
times, aman of concrete thought in whom the
linguistic development of the Occidental thou-
ght left no traces (Pérez-Rincón, 1994).
On the other hand, this concrete cognitive style:
the "Pensée opératoire" of Marty and De M'Uzan
(Marty and De M'Uzan, 1963), the tendency of the
subject to experience psychosomatic expressions
and somatomorphic dysfunctions, together with
REFERENCES
1. CLAUS D.B.: Toward the SouL. An Enquiry into
the meaning of'IfUXTJbefore Plato. 1981 (cited by
De Romilly, ref. 11>.
2. De ROMILL y J.: Patience, mon coeur! Les Bel-
les Lettres, Paris, 1991.
3. HOPPE K.D.: Hemispheric specialization and
creativity. Psychiatr. Clin. North-Am., 1988; 11:
303-315.
4. lKEMI Y, IKEMI A.: An oriental point of view
in ps)'chosúmatir medicine. Psychother.-Psycho-
som., 1986; 45: 118-126.
5. MARTY P., DE M1JZAN M.: La pensée opératoire.
Revue Fr. Psychoanal., 1963; suppl. 27: 1345-1356.
6. NEMIAH J.C., SIFNEOS P.E.: Affect and Phan-
tasy in patients with psychosomatic disorders.
In: Hill CEd.)Moderns Trends in Psychosomatic
Medicine. V. 2. Butterworths, London, 1970.
7. PÉREZ-RINCÚN H.: Cuerpo y palabra en la
psiquiatría. Salud. Mental., 1994; 17: 1-6.
8. ROSSI R.: Eros corporeo e menta le. Quaderni
160
his poor capacity to enter into the world of phanta-
sy, which is a characteristic of the alexithymic pa-
tient (Nemiah and Sifneos, 1970), are very well
examplified in the 17th century English poet, Wil-
liam Cartwright's sonnet, "No platonic love".
Tell me no more of minds embracing minds,
And hearts echang'd for hearts;
That spirits spirits meet, as winds do winds
And mix their subt' lest parte;;
That two unbodied essences ,lay kiss,
And then like Angels, twist and feel one
Bliss.
1 was that silly thing that once was wrought
To practise this thing love;
1 climh'ci from sex to soul, from soul to thou-
ght;
But thinking there to move,
Headlong 1 rolled from thought to soul, and
then
From soul 1 lighted at the sex again.
Next to the neuropsychological, somatosenso-
rial, psychosocial, cognitive, affective, psycholo-
gical, etnographic explanations evoked in the bi-
bliography in relation with the presence of
alexithymia, we may place another one related
with a deficit in the acquisition of the symbolic
capacity which leads to the purely verballevel-
Theilhard de Chardin's "noosphere" - arising
from which was only somatic. In this standstill
of the expressive capacities development, onto-
geny seems to recapitulate phylogeny again.
Italiani di Psichiatria, 1986; 4: 321-330.
9. SIFNEOS P.E.: The preualence of alexithymic cha-
racteristics in psychosomatic patients. Psychother.
Psychosom., 1973; 22: 255-262.
10. SNELL B.: Das Bewusstsein von eigenen Ent-
scheidungen im frühen Griechentum. Philolo-
gus, 1930;85: 141-158.
11. SNELL B.: Poetry and Society, The Role of Poe-
try in Ancient Greece. Indiana University Press,
Bloomington, 1961.
12. SNELL B.: Der Aufbau der Spruche. Claasen
Verlag, Hamburg, 1962.
13. SNELL B.: La Cultura Greca e le Origini del
Pensiero Europeo. Einaudi, Torino, 1981.
14. STOUDEMIRE A.: Somatoth)'mía. Psychoso-
matics, 1991; 32: 365-381.
15. TAYLOR G.J.: The alexithymia construct: con-
ceptualization, validation, and relationship
u'ith basic dimensions ol personality. New
Trends Exper. Clin. Psychiatry, 1994; 10: 61-74.
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