Alexithymia is a personality construct whose Latin compounds literally mean “no words for feelings” . In this text you're going to read about: The emergence of the alexithymia concept, Description of alexithymia by Sifneos and Nemiah, Explanatory examples for the core features, Recent approaches, Empathic abilities in alexithymia, Neural substrates Historically, alexithymia was first put forward in the context of somatoform disorders by Sifneos (1970) as a dichotomous clinical variable based on a conjoint work with Nemiah. In fact, clinical observations related to alexithymia were already reported by many psychiatrists, way before Sifneos brought about the term. At that time, psychosomatic disorders were explained through Freudian theories which highlight the unconscious conflicts as a reason for physical symptoms. However, difficulties to reach empirical evidence which has already caused to get theories of Freud frequent criticism throughout his life continued to be t...