Alexithymia, emotional awareness and perceived dysfunctional parental behaviors in heroin dependents

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com © Springer Science+Business MediaThe aim of this study was to analyse alexithymia and deficits in emotional awareness, in heroin addicts, and their relationship with perceptions of early parental interactions. The sample included 99 opiate dependent outpatients and 43 healthy controls. Assessment was performed using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale, the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale, the Inventory for Assessing Memories of Parental Rearing Behavior, the Mini-Mental State Examination and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Findings suggest parental representations, which were mostly characterized by emotional unavailability and a rejection interaction pattern, significantly related to alexithymia. Emotional awareness was associated with the number of years of drug use and methadone level. Negative affect was associated with alexithymia but not to emotional awareness. Regression analyses emphasized the influence of perceived dysfunctional parenting behaviors in alexithymia and difficulties in identifying feelings, particularly an interaction with paternal rejection, moderated by self-reported anxiety. These results are discussed addressing comprehensive issues of emotion regulation and treatment strategies in heroin dependence

Alexithymia may explain the relationship between autistic traits and eating disorder psychopathology

Background: Autistic people are disproportionately vulnerable to anorexia nervosa and other eating disorders (ED), and within the general population, autistic traits correlate with ED psychopathology. A putative mechanism which may underpin this heightened risk is alexithymia, a difficulty identifying and describing emotional states which is observed in both autism and ED. In two experiments with independent non-clinical samples, we explored whether alexithymia might mediate the heightened risk of eating psychopathology in individuals high in autistic traits. Methods: Our first experiment used the PROCESS macro for SPSS to examine relationships between alexithymia (measured by the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20)), autistic traits (autism quotient (AQ)), and eating psychopathology (Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26)) in 121 participants. Our second experiment (n = 300) replicated and furthered this analysis by examining moderating effects of sex and controlling for anxiety and depression as covariates. We also included an additional performance-based measure of alexithymia, the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS). Results: Study 1 suggested that TAS-20 scores mediated the relationship between heightened autistic traits and eating psychopathology. Replication and further scrutiny of this finding, in study 2, revealed that this mediation effect was partial and specific to the female participants in this sample. The mediation effect appeared to be carried by the difficulty identifying feelings subscale of the TAS-20, even when depression and anxiety were controlled for. LEAS scores, however, were not significantly related to autistic traits or eating psychopathology. Limitations: Cross-sectional data prevents any conclusions around the direction and causality of relationships between alexithymia, autistic traits, and eating psychopathology (alongside depression and anxiety), necessitating longitudinal research. Our non-clinical sample was predominantly Caucasian undergraduate students, so it remains to be seen if these results would extrapolate to clinical and/or autistic samples. Divergence between the TAS-20 and LEAS raises crucial questions regarding the construct validity of these measures. Conclusions: Our findings with respect to autistic traits suggest that alexithymia could partially explain the prevalence of ED in autistic people and may as such be an important consideration in the pathogenesis and treatment of ED in autistic and non-autistic people alike. Further research with clinical samples is critical to explore these ideas. Differences between men and women, furthermore, emphasize the importance of looking for sexspecific as well as generic risk factors in autistic and non-autistic men and women

Different patterns of regional brain activation during emotional stimulation in alexithymics in comparison with normal controls a positron emission tomography (PET) study with O-15- H2O and emotional stimulation by way of autobiographic recall

Objective: This study was designed to determine patterns of regional brain activation during emotional stimulation in alexithymics as compared with normal controls. Method: We used O-15-water positron emission tomography and an emotional stimulation paradigm based upon autobiographic recall of either happy, sad or emotionally neutral situations. 10 normal subjects without medical or psychiatrical history were compared with 9 patients with somatoform disorder without any other DSM- IV diagnosis. TAS-20 was used as a measure for alexithymia, depression was measured using BDI. Results: Normal controls showed significantly greater activation than alexithymics in cingulate areas, corpus callosum, and right superior and inferior frontal gyrus. Alexithymics activated significantly more in cuneus and precuneus, thalamus (pulvinar), left medial frontal, right inferior temporal, left superior temporal regions, left precentral gyrus, and the cerebellum. Conclusions: During emotional autobiographic recall, alexithymia, either trait or state, is characterized by utilization of different brain regions when compared to normal controls. The areas activated by alexithymic persons largely comprise of language related regions, leaving out limbic and paralimbic areas

Development and validation of a computer program for measuring emotional awareness in German—The geLEAS (German electronic Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale)

Introduction: Emotional awareness is the ability to identify, interpret, and verbalize the emotional responses of oneself and those of others. The Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS) is an objective performance inventory that accurately measures an individual's emotional awareness. LEAS assessments are typically scored manually and are therefore both time consuming and cognitively demanding. This study presents a German electronic scoring program for the LEAS (geLEAS), the first non-English computerized assessment approach of the LEAS. Methods: Data were collected from a healthy German community sample (N = 208). We developed a modern software for computerizing LEAS scoring, an open-source text-based emotion assessment tool called VETA (Verbal Emotion in Text Assessment). We investigated if the software would arrive at similar results as hand scoring in German and if emotional awareness would show similar associations to sociodemographic information and psychometric test results as in previous studies. Results: The most frequently used scoring method of the geLEAS shows excellent internal consistency (α = 0.94) and high correlations with hand scoring (r = 0.97, p < 0.001). Higher emotional awareness measured by the geLEAS is associated with female gender, older age, and higher academic achievement (all p < 0.001). Moreover, it is linked to the ability to identify emotions in facial expressions (p < 0.001) and more accurate theory of mind functioning (p < 0.001). Discussion: An automated method for evaluating emotional awareness greatly expands the ability to study emotional awareness in clinical care and research. This study aims to advance the use of emotional awareness as a clinical and scientific parameter. Copyright © 2023 Herpertz, Taylor, Allen, Herpertz, Opel, Richter, Subic-Wrana, Dieris-Hirche and Lane.Open access journalThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

Different patterns of regional brain activation during emotional stimulation in alexithymics in comparison with normal controls a positron emission tomography (PET) study with O-15- H2O and emotional stimulation by way of autobiographic recall

Objective: This study was designed to determine patterns of regional brain activation during emotional stimulation in alexithymics as compared with normal controls. Method: We used O-15-water positron emission tomography and an emotional stimulation paradigm based upon autobiographic recall of either happy, sad or emotionally neutral situations. 10 normal subjects without medical or psychiatrical history were compared with 9 patients with somatoform disorder without any other DSM- IV diagnosis. TAS-20 was used as a measure for alexithymia, depression was measured using BDI. Results: Normal controls showed significantly greater activation than alexithymics in cingulate areas, corpus callosum, and right superior and inferior frontal gyrus. Alexithymics activated significantly more in cuneus and precuneus, thalamus (pulvinar), left medial frontal, right inferior temporal, left superior temporal regions, left precentral gyrus, and the cerebellum. Conclusions: During emotional autobiographic recall, alexithymia, either trait or state, is characterized by utilization of different brain regions when compared to normal controls. The areas activated by alexithymic persons largely comprise of language related regions, leaving out limbic and paralimbic areas