Abstract
Alexithymia was first noted in clinical observations of psychosomatic patients. Much of the earliest writing on the subject of psychosomatic illness and what later became known as alexithymia, maintained a largely psychoanalytic focus, relying on early childhood experiences, arrested super-ego identification, the unconscious, and Freud’s psychosexual stages to explain the development of symptoms. Later, the observation of common characteristics led to the development of the construct of alexithymia by Nemiah and Sifneos in the early 1970s. A number of theories have been put forth regarding the etiology of alexithymia including a cognitive-developmental theory of emotional awareness, and more recently a “multiple code theory”. Alexithymia is also thought to develop as the result of a traumatic brain injury.
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Timoney, L.R., Holder, M.D. (2013). The History of the Construct and Etiology of Alexithymia. In: Emotional Processing Deficits and Happiness. SpringerBriefs in Well-Being and Quality of Life Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7177-2_2
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