Affective agnosia: Expansion of the alexithymia construct and a new opportunity to integrate and extend Freud's legacy

摘要: We describe a new type of agnosia consisting an impairment in the ability to mentally represent or know what one is feeling. Freud neurologist coined term "agnosia" 1891 before creating psychoanalysis 1895 but has not been previously applied domain affective processing. propose that concept "affective agnosia" advances theory, measurement and treatment now called "alexithymia," meaning "lack words for emotion." trace origin alexithymia construct discuss strengths limitations extant research. review evidence put emotions into developmental achievement strongly influences one's experience, recognize, understand use own emotional responses. neural substrates awareness compare contrast these with related conditions. then how this expansion conceptualization processing deficits important implications basic emotion research clinical practice.