“Alexisomia”: A shift in focus from Alexithymia Dr Gen Komaki
Collection published: 21 December 2012 Last updated: 28 March
2013 A limited ability to understand, process, or describe one’s
own feelings is referred to as alexithymia, literally “no words
for feelings”. This concept, first introduced by P.E. Sifneos1),
was derived from his observations of psychosomatic patients who
had deficits in identifying, describing, and working with their
own feelings and who had difficulty distinguishing between their
feelings and bodily sensations related to emotions. In addition
to psychosomatic patients, alexithymia has recently been used to
refer to deficits in the emotional functioning of broader
populations and to include common medical and psychiatric
disorders (e.g., eating disorders, substance abuse, and
posttraumatic stress disorder). In this thematic series, the
latest brain imaging findings on the neurological basis of
alexithymia are presented. We also present findings on social
cognition and the influence of