Clients' positive and negative expressiveness within their families and alexithymia

49 prospective clients from a midwestern urban community, who sought counseling at a university training clinic, completed the Self-expressiveness in the Family Questionnaire and the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale. As predicted, the positive self-expressiveness scores were significantly negatively correlated -.52 with scores on alexithymia, and the negative self-expressiveness scores were significantly positively correlated .34 with alexithymia. These results support the premise that mental health clients' self-reported lack of positive expressiveness and abundance of negative expressiveness within their family context may be attributes associated with their tendency to be alexithymic.