New Trends in Alexithymia Research

Research investigating the alexithymia construct is advancing rapidly and has broadened considerably in recent years as a result of interdisciplinary efforts, new methodologies, and experimental techniques. New developments in the field include a shift from measurement-based validational studies to experimental investigations, which explore the relation between alexithymia and various aspects of emotional processing; the use of functional brain imaging techniques to explore neural activity associated with alexithymia; and experimental studies that measure multiple indices of physiological response to standardized emotion-inducing stimuli. Developmental research and attachment studies are providing ways for…