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Cited by 43Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatmentsscientometrics and bibliometrics researchPsychology Research and Bibliometrics

A Scientometric Review of Alexithymia: Mapping Thematic and Disciplinary Shifts in Half a Century of Research

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Gaggero, Giulia, Bonassi, Andrea, Dellantonio, Sara, Pastore, Luigi, Aryadoust, Vahid, Esposito, Gianluca·2020·Frontiers in Psychiatry
DOI 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.611489PMC PMC7758403
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Abstract

The term “alexithymia” was introduced in the lexicon of psychiatry in the early ‘70s by Sifneos to outline the difficulties manifested by some patients in identifying and describing their own emotions. Since then, the construct has been broadened and partially modified. Today this describes a condition characterized by an altered emotional awareness which leads to difficulties in recognizing your own and others' emotions. In half a century, the volume of scientific products focusing on alexithymia has exceeded 5,000. Such an expansive knowledge domain poses a difficulty for those willing to understand how alexithymia research has developed. Scientometrics embodies a solution to this issue, employing computational, and visual analytic methods to uncover meaningful patterns within large bibliographical corpora. In this study, we used the CiteSpace software to examine a corpus of 4,930 publications on alexithymia ranging from 1980 to 2020 and their 100,251 references included in Web of Science. Document co-citation analysis was performed to highlight pivotal publications and major research areas on alexithymia, whereas journal co-citation analysis was conducted to find the related editorial venues and disciplinary communities. The analyses suggest that the construct of alexithymia experienced a gradual thematic and disciplinary shift. Although the first conceptualization of alexithymia came from psychoanalysis and psychosomatics, empirical research was pushed by the operationalization of the construct formulated at the end of the ‘80s. Specifically, the development of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale, currently the most used self-report instrument, seems to have encouraged both the entrance of new disciplines in the study of alexithymia (i.e., cognitive science and neuroscience) and an implicit redefinition of its conceptual nucleus. Overall, we discuss opportunities and limitations in the application of this bottom-up approach, which highlights trends in alexithymia research that were previously identified only through a qualitative, theory-driven approach.

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Crossref · 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.611489

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  • The review set its starting point at 2010 because including studies from 2000 to 2010 could introduce variability in quality due to the advent of TAS-20 in 1994.

    “We set this review’s starting point at 2010, since including studies from 2000 to 2010 could introduce variability in quality due to the advent of TAS-20 in 1994 [37].”

    From Psychological Treatments for Alexithymia: A Systematic Review (2024) · cites this paper as [37]

    The Discussion (Major Thematic Clusters Found via DCA; page unavailable) places the development of TAS-20 around 1994 and describes subsequent changes in alexithymia research. It does not say that including studies from 2000–2010 would introduce variability in study quality; the Methods instead describe a review covering publications from 1980–2020. The 2010 starting point is the citing authors’ own choice. (LLM, conf=0.86)

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2 of the 153 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 4

  1. [51]Chen C CiteSpace: A Practical Guide for Mapping Scientific Literature. Oxford: Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated (2016).
  2. [59]Chen C The Citespace Manual, Vol. 1 College of Computing and Informatics (2014). p. 1– 84.
  3. [61]American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), 5th Edn. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association Press (2013).
  4. [64]American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), 4th Edn. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association Press (1994).

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Authors
Gaggero, G., Bonassi, A., Dellantonio, S., Pastore, L., Aryadoust, V., & Esposito, G.
Affiliations
  • University of Trento (IT)
  • University of Bari Aldo Moro (IT)
  • Nanyang Technological University (SG)
Corresponding author
Esposito, Gianluca
ORCID
Venue
Frontiers in Psychiatry
Publisher
Frontiers Media SA
Published
2020-12-10
Volume
11
Pages
611489-611489
ISSN
1664-0640 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.3389/fpsyt.2020.611489
PMC
PMC7758403
OpenAlex
W3112142374
Cited by
40
References
153
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 1
FWCI
1.16
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Frontiers in Psychiatry (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • NIE Digital Repository (National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University) (publishedVersion)
  • Iris (University of Trento) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • DR-NTU (Nanyang Technological University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • CINECA IRIS Institutional Research Information System (University of Bari Aldo Moro) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
Università degli Studi di Trento
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Psychology Research and Bibliometrics
Keywords
alexithymia, research trends, Toronto Alexithymia Scale, emotional awareness, construct operationalization, self-report measures, interdisciplinary research, cognitive science, psychoanalysis, psychosomatic medicine, bibliometric analysis

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