Current Developments in Alexithymia - A Cognitive and Affective Deficit

Current Developments in Alexithymia: A Cognitive and Affective Deficit is a book that aims to establish a tangible synthesis between aspects that sometimes disorient the clinician and allow for framing in some others that are considered as central in the research necessary in this field. Since the original definition was coined by Sifneos and Nemiah, alexithymia has been found to be associated with a broad range of somatic and psychiatric disorders, and the concept has been refined theoretically speaking. Alexithymia is now accepted as an affective deficit and a normally distributed multifaceted personality variable characterized by impairments in the ability to experience and symbolize ones own and others emotions. The alexithymia construct retains important relevance for affective, social and cognitive neuroscientific research as it is tightly linked to the understanding of mechanisms of cognitive and affective processing, emotional awareness and social interaction. Alexithymia has gained increased attention as a possible vulnerability factor for a variety of medical and psychopathological disorders. Collectively, alexithymic facets have been shown to reflect deficits in the capacity to process and consciously experience emotions as well as to regulate emotional states through cognitive processes. The present book presents current findings, reviews and models on affective and cognitive mechanisms of alexithymia in healthy and clinical samples, offering some new reflections and orientations for academics and clinicians in fields such as clinical and health psychology, counseling psychology, psychiatry, social work, and psychiatric nursing.