Résumé
Alexithymia is described as difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings, and externally oriented thinking (Bagby et al., 1994). Alexithymia has been identified as a risk factor for psychosomatic disorders, depression, and anxiety (Bankier et al., 2001). In sport contexts, alexithymia has primarily been discussed as a motive to engage in high-risk sport (Woodman, 2008), although there is no research exploring how athletes with alexithymia describe and understand emotions in sport. The purpose of the present study is to explore how emotions are experienced and regulated by athletes with elevated alexithymia scores. Eight athletes (n = 2 male, n = 6 female) scoring +1SD on the Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire (Preece et al., 2018) participated in semi-structured qualitative interviews. Interview transcripts were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2019). The first key theme, Neutral Emotions, Strong Game, concerned athletes’ beliefs about the importance of maintaining a neutral emotional state while competing to ensure optimal sport performance. A second theme, A Minute to Myself, reflected athletes’ use of strategies like isolating themselves from teammates to regulate their negative emotions. A third theme was Loss for Words, which reflected challenges athletes faced when discussing and articulating their emotions during the interviews, as athletes struggled putting their emotional experiences into words. These results demonstrate the need to continue exploring how athletes with alexithymia regulate and express their emotions in sport. These insights may help inform interventions aimed at addressing emotional awareness in athletes.
