Current challenges for alexithymia research: understand better explanatory factors and provide new paths for intervention

Abstract

Alexithymia is a construct comprising (a) difficulty identifying feelings; (b) difficulty describing feelings to others; (c) a restricted imagination, and (d) a cognitive style that is literal and utilitarian. These cognitive and affective characteristics were observed among patients with a variety of psychiatric and medical disorders that involve disturbances in emotion regulation, suggesting that alexithymia could be a vulnerability factor. One central question is to better understand how high alexithymia scorers (HA) process emotions on different channels, which relates to a multimodal approach of vulnerability factors in health. Habituation to emotion will be the focus of Panayiotou, examining how physiological (HRV) and subjective responses to emotion covary. Ridout will test the possible combined influence of mood (depression) and alexithymia to explain the severity of disordered eating. High degree of interoceptive awareness has been identified as a key factor for better emotion regulation capacities. Alexithymia is associated with strong deficits in interoceptive awareness, which can explain important pathways leading to illness behaviors and symptoms reports. This question will be examined by Pollatos and by Mai in children and adolescents, knowing that the deficits observed at a young age can be a risk-factor for disturbed embodiment, which is a key factor in eating disorders. Although alexithymia was mainly investigated at an intrapersonal level, there were more attempts recently to examine interpersonal outcomes. This literature did not consider, however, the way partners deal with individual and dyadic stressors. Luminet will show that couples with unbalanced alexithymia have more difficulties in dyadic coping compared to couples with similar level of alexithymia, which can affect psychological adjustment of each partner, but also marital satisfaction in the couple.