Dear Colleagues,

Alexithymia is a personality trait in which the individual is unable to identify and describe their own emotions. The main feature of alexithymia is an emotional unawareness, lack of social attachment, and poor interpersonal relation. Furthermore, those suffering from alexithymia have difficulty recognizing and understanding the emotions of others.

Alexithymia means there are:

1. Difficulties identifying feelings and distinguishing between feelings and bodily sensations.
2. Difficulties describing feelings to other people.
3. Reduced daydreaming and limited imagination and, therefore, little or no fantasies and limited dreams with a concrete style of thinking.
4. A reduced empathy or ability to communicate inner states to others.

It has been demonstrated in several studies that often alexithymic individuals may show significantly higher levels of psychological distress than non-alexithymics and may develop “functional” somatic symptoms and psychiatric symptoms such as anxiety and depression.

Moreover, it has been suggested that alexithymic subjects may scarcely respond to both pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy. The characteristic attributes of alexithymic behavior are predominantly manifest in social interactions with high emotional significance. The affect-avoiding interpersonal pattern behavior showed by such subjects is often maladaptive and may elicit disorders and conflicts in important relationships, finally contributing the risk of the development of psychiatric symptoms such as depression or anxiety, thus increasing the risk of suicide.

Moreover, it has been demonstrated that alexithymia should be considered as a relatively stable personality trait, enhancing vulnerability to psychiatric symptoms, and is generally associated with higher risk of death for several causes (accidents, injury, or violence).

There is increasing evidence that alexithymia may be considered a risk factor for suicide, even simply increasing the risk of the development of depressive symptoms per se. This evidence comes from the results of several studies conducted on both the general population and clinical samples of patients with psychiatric disorders or medical conditions.

Therefore, the aim of the present Issue is to give an update on biopsychosocial aspects of alexithymia concerning several points of view (neurobiological, structural, functional, psychological aspects, etc.). Both theoretical and empirical papers are welcome, as well as reviews, mini-reviews, interesting case-reports, and commentaries. All areas concerning alexithymia may be welcomed, from neurobiological and imaging findings to psychopathological and psychological issues. In addition, review papers or original studies on psychosomatic diseases and somatic symptoms would be of great interest.

Prof. Domenico De Berardis
Dr. Alessandro Valchera
Dr. Federica Vellante
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Brain Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• alexithymia
• psychosomatics
• emotions
• affective dysregulation
• suicide
• substance abuse
• anxiety
• psychosis
• mood disorders
• mind–body connection
• neurobiology and neuroimaging