Alexithymia: subscales and relationship to depression

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry
• Psychology
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Alexithymia is a personality construct characterized by difficulty identifying and describing feelings.
• Alcohol use disorder is often comorbid with alexithymia.
• Changes in alexithymia during early abstinence from alcohol are not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate changes in Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) scores during the initial phase of alcohol abstinence.
• To examine the utility of TAS subscales in assessing alexithymia in this population.

Main Methods:

• A sample of newly abstinent alcoholic inpatients completed the TAS and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) at admission (Time 1) and after 3 weeks of treatment (Time 2).
• Paired t-tests were used to analyze changes in TAS and BDI scores from Time 1 to Time 2.

Main Results:

• Mean BDI scores significantly decreased from Time 1 to Time 2.
• Mean TAS total scores did not significantly change between Time 1 and Time 2.
• Analysis of TAS subscales indicated that the subscale measuring the ability to identify feelings and distinguish them from bodily sensations may be a more robust indicator of alexithymia than the total score.

Conclusions:

• Early abstinence from alcohol does not appear to significantly reduce alexithymia as measured by the TAS total score.
• The findings suggest that the ability to identify and distinguish feelings may be a core component of alexithymia that is less responsive to short-term changes in alcohol use.
• Further research is needed to explore the longitudinal changes in alexithymia and its subcomponents during recovery from alcohol use disorder.