How useful is the Construct of Alexithymia for Understanding the Risk of Mental Disorders?

The term Alexithymia identifies a multidimensional cognitive and affective condition, characterized by difficulty to recognize and distinguish feelings from bodily sensations of emotional arousal, difficulty to describe emotions, poor fantasies and preoccupation with external events [1]. Alexithymia was originally described as a personality trait in psychosomatic patients with poor response to psychotherapy [2]. More recently, it became a trans-nosographic construct, representing a putative risk factor for the development of several mental disorders, such as major depression (MD) [1], panic disorder (PD) [3], eating disorders (ED) [4] and substance use disorders (SUD) [5].