Alexithymia: Treatment Interventions

Abstract

Alexithymia means and ldquo;no words for emotions and rdquo; and the psychotherapy process is known to be negatively influenced, as the level of alexithymia increases. Therefore, alexithymia score is considered as an essential tool helping clinicians treat the patients. In this literature review, ongoing discussions on the alexithymia treatment will be studied by focusing on the long-term effects of the alexithymic characteristics on the treatment results and the prominenet psychotherapy approaches in the alexithymia treatment. In the light of the related studies' results, the treatment of alexithymia will be examined in terms of its progress in time from pharmacotherapy to psychotherapy; problems of attachment and progress in psychotherapy; psychotherapeutic techniques, which help clinicians overcome the obstacles in the treatment process. At this point, the focus will be on group therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy, as they are considered as the prominent therapies in comparison with the other therapy approaches in the treatment of alexithymia. [Psikiyatride Guncel Yaklasimlar - Current Approaches in Psychiatry 2014; 6(1.000): 22-31]

Keywords

• Alexithymia
• Treatment
• Psychotherapy
• Group Therapy
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy