Alexithymia is considered a “sub-clinical phenomenon” (Silani et al. 2008) and doesn’t identify a personality disorder  per se  but is a personality trait that is dimensional in nature (Taylor et al. 1991). Alexithymia is not a symptom of autism, but rather an independent construct that frequently co-occurs with autism. Although alexithymia has similar symptoms , it is distinct from autism – it is neither a necessary nor sufficient feature for an autism diagnosis, and there a

The connection between alexithymia and ASD was initially explored in the 1990s through clinical studies on individuals with eating disorders, specifically anorexia nervosa (AN).   The studies revealed the co-occurrence of eating disorders with deficiencies in social competence and identified some traits that were considered typical of ASD, [ 1 ]   such as empathy problems, as well as some features considered typical of alexithymia, such as difficulty verbalising emotions, ide

The growing evidence suggests that alexithymia is a heterogeneous  and dimensional phenomenon. Alexithymia Subtypes Several studies have identified alexithymia subtypes. Here are some of the most recent ones: Lane et al. (2015) distinguished anomic (problems naming  emotions but intact theory of mind) and agnostic (problems forming conceptual representations  of emotions and impaired theory of mind) forms. Kajanoja et al. (2017) compared depressive and anxiety symptoms, se