Alexithymia in Organizational Life: The Organization Man Revisited

Abstract

In this article, the organization man is looked at from a different perspective within the context of a relatively recent clinical construct called alexithymia. Alexithymia, meaning literally no words for moods, is basically a communication disorder. The construct has been introduced in psychiatry and medical psychology because of a consistent body of clinical and phenomenological observations relating to a particular way of interacting emotionally. More specifically, it refers to individuals with an extreme reality-based cognitive style, an impoverished fantasy life, a paucity of inner emotional experiences, a tendency to enagage in stereotypical interpersonal behavior, and a speech pattern characterized by endless, trivial, repetitive details. As a clinical syndrome, integrating and telescoping co-variant characteristics, it alerts the clinician to a cluster of otherwise most likely unobserved but frequently related cognitive and affective patterns. Alexithymia as a clinical construct also helps us better understand the relationship between early bodily experiences, how via the route of mental representation of thoughts and feelings a vocabulary for emotions develops. It is hypothesized that there is an interesting parallel between the organization man and those people with an alexithymic disposition. It is postulated that certain types of organizations, e.g., compulsive and depressive, not only legitimize but also foster this type of behavior. In addition, we suggest that certain management styles, e.g., the detached CEO, the systems person, and the social sensor, are characterized by alexithymic patterns. In conclusion, a few propositions are made for ways of dealing with the negative repercussions of the alexithymic executive.