Abstract
The concept of alexithymia has been intensively studied in the field of psychosomatic medicine in Japan. These studies, however, mainly focused on the pathologic or pathogenic aspects of alexithymia of psychosomatic patients rather than on the treatment implications of this concept. As a psychotherapist, the author discussed the treatment implications of this concept from an integrative psychotherapeutic point of view. Clinicians should assess the cognitive. behavioral, and physical areas as well as the affective area. It is also important to formulate the problems based on the understanding of underlying schema or representations of self and objects. In order to understand the communicative aspects of emotion it is useful to tune in the patient's emotion from two points of view, categorical and gradient. The strategies are decided by various factors, which are determined by features of the patient and therapist, the nature of therapeutic relationships, the treatment phase, and the treatment environment.
