For example, people who can’t identify what they experience emotionally are said to have “alexithymia.”
This clinical deficit correlates with a wide range of psychological problems. And, you will not be surprised
to learn, it correlates highly with experiential avoidance (Hayes, Strosahl, et al. 2004) A person
unable to observe and describe her own present experience is someone who is deaf and blind to what is
going on in the moment.
We’ve been taught to speak of our personal histories and current predispositions by locating and
identifying what we are feeling. For example, a child will be asked, “Are you hungry?” by way of asking,
“Will you eat food if I give you some?” Very young children sometimes have a hard time answering this
question accurately because their sense of self is still developing, and they haven’t yet learned what their
emotions and feelings mean. As a result, they may say they are not hungry, and then ask for food
minutes later; or they may say they are hungry and then pick at the food they are given because, in fact,
they are not. (Every parent knows about this type of “disconnect” with young children.)
Making contact with the present moment and the experiences it produces is more likely when
fusion and avoidance are undermined. Chronic emotional avoiders do not know what they are feeling
because not knowing is itself a powerful form of avoidance.
This more fluid sense of self as an ongoing process of awareness is also diminished when attachment
to the conceptualized self dominates; noticing reactions that do not accord with the dominant story
becomes threatening to the conceptualized self. For example, a person who is supposedly “always helpful
and sweet” will have a hard time admitting to feelings or thoughts that are angry, jealous, or resentful as
they emerge in the present moment. Defusion and acceptance naturally support the development of the
self as an ongoing process of awareness.