Alexithymia in Adolescents: A Review of Literature
Abstract
Alexithymia has been extensively studied for almost five decades now all over the world, except for Romania. This paper presents an overview of literature in the field of alexithymia, in general: it provides the etymology of the word alexithymia, its various definitions, its main types (primary, secondary, organic, and normative), and its features. Alexithymia in adolescents has been studied from different perspectives (behavioural, biological, communicational, epistemological, legal, medical, neurobiological, neuropsychological, neuropsychiatric, neuroscientific, psychiatric, psychological, and psychosomatic), in relation to associated conditions (antisocial behaviour (including ADHD), anxiety, delinquency, depression, dissociation, eating disorders, generalised anxiety disorder, other mental disorders, psychiatric symptoms, somatic symptom disorder, suicide risk) or behaviours (aggressive behaviour, deliberate self-harm, risk of problematic Internet use, cognitive reappraisal strategies, borderline personality disorder, anxiety and depression). Researchers have focused on alexithymia and age, gender and culture, tried to identify possible causes of this disorder (childhood family environment, digital / video game addiction or gaming disorder or Internet addiction or Internet gaming disorder, Internet-related disorder, disadvantageous living conditions in childhood, early life experiences, emotional abuse and neglect, emotional difï¬culties with caregivers during childhood, lack of social support, parents with alcohol-use problems, systematic abuses and/or abandonment in childhood or early adolescence) and predictors of alexithymia (attachment style, children’s perception of a neglectful parenting style, deficit in speech development, less cognitive capacity, low self-control of emotions, parents’ alexithymic traits). The article is a plea in favour of explicit assessments of alexithymia before initiating psychological treatments and adequate address of adolescents’ mood disorders.
