There are people who are cold and lacking in empathy, so it is easy to think that they have no feelings. But is it possible? Are there men and women unable to feel emotions?
Written and verified by the psychologist GetPersonalGrowth.
Last update: 15 November 2021
Are there people who have no feelings? Many of us have asked ourselves this question on more than one occasion, especially when we have met cold people who lack empathy and emotional connection. We tend to call them ice hearts, cold men and women who not only grab our attention for how they act, but who sometimes cause us some concern as well.
On the other hand, it is also common to associate these profiles with the psychopathic personality. It is very easy to think so, to believe that those who are unable to grasp the emotional realities of others have a problem or are unable to feel emotions.
Really admitting that there may be someone empty in terms of feelings, therefore not being able to feel love, fear, sadness, enthusiasm, shame or happiness is a little scary. Because if there really was a being with these traits, he wouldn't be human. We could be faced with the prototype of a sophisticated robot equipped with artificial intelligence.
We must therefore assume that, in reality, we all have feelings and emotions. Understanding them, expressing them or using them correctly is a different kettle of fish.
People who have no feelings
Every psychologist is familiar with reading the emotions of others. Anger, disappointment or frustration are contained in many faces that apparently seem to be fine. Everyone has desires and every desire, good or bad, hides an emotion.
By this we mean that there are no people without feelings. We all have them because they are those psychophysiological states that orchestrate our actions, that facilitate learning, our development, our daily interaction and, in essence, ourselves.
Nobody is exempt, but the existence of these mechanisms in our daily life does not mean that they "work" in the right way.
Antisocial personalities: emotional emptiness and emotions to exploit
When we ask ourselves if there are people who do not have feelings, it is normal to think about psychopaths almost instantly. Today we are not talking about "psychopaths" as such, but about people with an antisocial personality disorder, a condition that affects 1% of the population. In these cases, the individual has some emotional deficiencies, such as:
- He is unable to create strong emotional bonds.
- He is motivated only by instrumental ends: he pretends to feel sensations to get what he wants.
- Beyond popular belief, psychopaths are empathetic, but with nuances. Studies such as those conducted at the University of Rotterdam (Netherlands) show us that they enjoy cognitive empathy (they understand what the other person is feeling). They lack, however, emotional empathy (they can't get in tune with others). This causes them to manipulate and deceive.
Alexithymia, lack of feelings?
Alexithymic people will say they love you, but they won't show you their feelings. They appear distant, cold, humorless, bored, taciturn most of the time and without that spark that facilitates and ignites the emotional connection ... alexithymia, also known as emotional illiteracy, is for many a clear example that there are people who do not have feelings.
However, the latter is caused by an emotional or neurological learning disorder. In both cases the result is the same: those who suffer from it are unable to understand their own emotional states, to understand those of others and to express what they feel.
Despite this, he loves, he experiences feelings such as happiness, fear, enthusiasm, desire, anguish, hope… he experiences these emotions, but he experiences them in a distorted way and is unable to express them.
People with no feelings: do they exist or not?
There are no people who don't have feelings. There are no human beings unable to feel emotions, just as there is no brain without a limbic system. This brain area largely directs every process, every sensation, every impulse that makes us laugh, cry, get excited, remember a moment or wish to forget it.
People are not rational beings, but emotional beings who reason. Emotions, understood as neurochemical and hormonal responses that arouse sensations in us, the latter defined as the mental representations of the former, are constant processes in each of us. There is no day or time when we don't feel an emotion.
Every human being experiences emotions, but not everyone does it equally. In addition to this, not everyone makes emotions the tool to promote coexistence, to generate constructive connections. This is perhaps our biggest problem, as well as the challenge of contemporary society.
