Are There People Without Feelings?

Are there people without feelings? Many have asked this question more than once. You may ask yourself the question when you meet someone who is cold-hearted and shows a lack of empathy and emotional connection. The way they act makes you think they are cold-hearted. Undoubtedly, such an attitude can sometimes make you feel uncomfortable.

On the other hand, it is also common to associate these types of profiles with psychopathic personalities. It is very easy to believe the idea that those who cannot understand the emotional realities of others have some kind of problem. This may make you think that they have a tendency to harm people around them (physically or mentally).

There is something frightening about this. Think about it. Imagine a person who has no feelings at all, who can not experience love, fear, sadness, shame or happiness. Honestly, a human without feelings would simply not be human, but rather some kind of sophisticated robot equipped with artificial intelligence.

But even though it is quite common to hear someone say to another person that they have no feelings, it is important to remember that this is not true. Everyone has emotions, that’s what makes us human. Now it is another thing to be able to understand and express them correctly. And that’s what we’ll be talking about in this article.

People without feelings

If there is one thing that psychiatrists are good at, it is reading other people’s feelings. Many individuals may feel anger, anger, disappointment or frustration and still look completely unaffected. Everyone has their personal desires and goals, and whether there are good or bad intentions behind it, there is always a feeling at the bottom.

The starting point of this article is that there are basically no people without emotions. We all have emotions because the psychophysiological states orchestrate who we are. Emotions facilitate our learning, our development, our daily interaction and pretty much everything we are. These processes are found in every single brain. But the fact that they are present does not mean that they always “work” in the right way.

Let us analyze this further.

Antisocial personalities: the affective void and instrumental emotions

When we wonder if there are people without feelings, it is common for psychopaths to come to mind. Nowadays, the term “psychopath” is not used very often. Instead, we refer to them as individuals with an antisocial personality disorder, a condition that affects about 1% of the population. The following are some characteristics of people with this disorder:

• They are unable to create strong emotional bonds.
• The motivation is for instrumental purposes. In other words, they are looking for new experiences, as well as getting what they want as a result.

• Most people think that antisocial individuals lack empathy, but they do not; however, there are nuances.
• A study conducted at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands, showed that these individuals have a cognitive empathy (they understand what the other feels). However, they lack affective empathy (they do not relate to the other on an emotional level). This, of course, makes it easier for them to manipulate and deceive others.

Individuals with alexithymia

These people may say they love you, but do not show it, at least not as is usually expected. They are distant and cold. For the most part, they lack humor and get bored easily. In addition, they are quite quiet and lack the spark that ignites an emotional connection to others. Many people believe that people with alexithymia are clear examples of people without feelings. But to assume this is a mistake.

The cause of alexithymia is an emotional learning disorder or a neurological disorder. Which of the two causes the disease does not matter much, however, because the end result is the same. They are people who cannot understand their own, or other people’s, emotional states. They find it extremely difficult to find out exactly how they are feeling right now.

Nevertheless, they can love others and experience happiness, fear, longing, anxiety and hope. But even if they have feelings, they experience them in a distorted way and as a result can not express them normally.

Are there actually people without feelings?

The answer is no – there are no people without emotions. The reality is that all people have the ability to experience emotions. Only those who lacked a limbic system in the brain would be incapable. Let us remember that this area is what largely orchestrates every basic psychological process, every emotion and every impulse that makes you laugh, cry, be moved, remember for a moment or wish you could forget it.

Humans are not rational by nature. Rather, they are emotional with the ability to reason. On the one hand, emotions are neurochemical and hormonal reactions that stem from a person’s experiences. On the other hand, emotions are the mental representations of impulses and moods. Both of these processes are constant in all people. Just think for yourself, you always experience a feeling.

All people feel but not in the same way. In addition, not everyone uses emotions as a tool to promote coexistence or create enriching relationships with others.