A Disorder of Emotion Regulation: Alexithymia

One of the unique psychological achievements of human beings is that they can mentally represent their emotional experiences and express their feelings in words. However not everybody is equally successful at this task. In particular, people with high levels of alexithymia display notable difficulties in identifying and describing their emotional feelings.

The scientific study of alexithymia is nowadays a booming enterprise across multiple disciplines, including psychology, neuroscience, psychiatry, and psychosomatic medicine. The aim of the NIAS-Lorentz Workshop on ‘A Disorder of Emotion Regulation: Alexithymia’ is to bridge the interdisciplinary research in alexithymia. This will be the first time in four decades since the construct was first suggested that researchers across the entire field will be gathered together in a single meeting. The workshop, and edited book to follow, will bring together the state of the art in alexithymia research. Furthermore, the workshop will also define an agenda of the main challenges for future research and concrete action plans for tackling these issues.