Search results for " Alexithymia"
showing 10 items of 25 documents
Psychodiagnostic Assessment of Pathological Gamblers: A Focus on Personality Disorders, Clinical Syndromes and Alexithymia
2015
Comorbid psychopathological syndromes are common in pathological gamblers (PGs), but the contribution of alexithymia, as a disorder of affect regulation, has not been fully explored yet. This study sought to examine the association between personality disorders, clinical syndromes and alexithymia levels in a group of PGs and to highlight a relationship between gambling behaviour and alexithymia scores, apart from the relationship between other disorders and gambling behaviour. Psychological assessment included the South Oaks Gambling Screen, Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI-III) and Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) performed on 70 treatment seeking PGs and 70 healthy controls. S…
The relationship between alexithymia, shame, trauma, and body image disorders: investigation over a large clinical sample.
2013
Emilio Franzoni,1 Stefano Gualandi,1 Vincenzo Caretti,2 Adriano Schimmenti,3 Elena Di Pietro,1 Gaetano Pellegrini,1 Giuseppe Craparo,3 Arianna Franchi,1 Alberto Verrotti,4 Alessandro Pellicciari11Child Neuropsychiatry Unit, University of Bologna, Italy; 2Department of Psychology, University of Palermo, Italy; 3Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, Kore University of Enna, Enna, Italy; 4Department of Pediatrics, University of Chieti, ItalyBackground: The connections between eating disorders (EDs) and alexithymia have not been fully clarified. This study aims to define alexithymia's connections with shame, trauma, dissociation, and body image disorders.Methods: We administered the Dis…
Alexithymia and the implicit self-concept of extraversion in women
2016
Abstract Findings from studies using self-reports suggest a negative association between the personality traits of alexithymia and extraversion. Self-report measures are assumed to assess aspects of the explicit self-concept of personality. Indirect measures, such as the Implicit Association Test (IAT), were developed to tap into the implicit self-concept of personality. The present study examined for the first time the relationship between self-reported alexithymia and the implicit self-concept of extraversion. The 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale and an Implicit Association Test (IAT) assessing extraversion were administered to 86 healthy women along with the NEO Five-factor Inventory (N…
Prevalence and Risk Factors for Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) in a sample of 5,979 Italian Online Gamers
2020
Background: The prevalence of Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) in the Italian population of gamers is unknown. Several risk factors, including time spent playing (TSP), are proposed as an epiphenomenon of emotional dysregulation. Methods: The study estimated the prevalence of IGD in at-risk Italian online gamers, and the interplay between alexithymia and other risk factors. 5,979 responders were surveyed. IGDS-SF9 estimated pathological gaming. TAS-20 measured Difficult in Identifying (DIF) and Describing Feelings (DDF), and Externally Oriented Thinking (EOT). Results: 43% of participants had pathological IGD scores. Male gender (OR=1.2, 95% C.I.=1, 1.5, p=0.019), TSP (OR=7.6, 95% C.I.=5.5, 1…
An Initial Study of Alexithymia and Its Relationship With Cognitive Abilities Among Mild Cognitive Impairment, Mild Alzheimer's Disease, and Healthy …
2018
The present study examined the degree to which alexithymia is greater in mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) relative to healthy volunteers (healthy comparison [HC]), and investigated relationships between alexithymia and cognition. Eighty-five participants (MCI = 30, AD = 21, HC = 34) underwent a comprehensive neuropsychological examination and completed the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20). Relative to HC, MCI and AD reported greater alexithymia total scores and higher scores on the TAS factor difficulty in identifying feelings (DIF). The remaining two factors, difficulty in describing feelings (DDF) and externally oriented thinking showed no signif…
Feeling physical pain while depressed: The effect of alexithymia
2020
Background: In the literature, depression and alexithymia are associated with greater pain perception. It is unknown whether depression and alexithymia have additive effects on perceived pain. Methods: The present study examined 152 participants (96 women, 56 men). Participants completed the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale, the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, the Brief Pain Inventory, and the NEO Personality Inventory. There were 49 participants in the active phase of depression with either definite (n = 15) or no alexithymia (n = 34). One hundred three participants showed no depression with either definite (n = 14) or no alexithymia (n = 89). Results: Pain severity showed a small but s…
Neural Correlates of Deficits in Pain-Related Affective Meaning Construction in Patients With Chronic Pain Disorder
2013
OBJECTIVE Psychological and neural mechanisms of the affective dimension of pain are known to be disturbed in patients with chronic pain disorder. The aim of this functional magnetic resonance imaging study was to assess the neurofunctional and behavioral measures underlying the ability to construct pain-related affective meaning in a painful situation by comparing 21 clinically and psychometrically well-characterized patients with persistent non-nociceptive somatoform pain with 19 healthy controls. METHODS The functional magnetic resonance imaging task involved viewing pictures depicting human hands and feet in different painful and nonpainful situations. Participants were asked to estimat…
Reliability and validity of the Toronto Structured Interview for Alexithymia in a mixed clinical and nonclinical sample from Italy
2011
The reliability and validity of the Toronto Structured Interview for Alexithymia (TSIA) have been demonstrated in previous studies with English-speaking community and psychiatric samples and a German-speaking psychiatric sample. The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the TSIA in a mixed clinical and nonclinical sample from Italy. The original English version of the TSIA was translated into Italian and administered, along with the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), to 80 healthy subjects, 69 medical outpatients, and 62 psychiatric outpatients. Eighty-one videotaped interviews were used for assessing the interrater reliability. Confirmatory factor analys…
Quality of life, alexithymia, and defence mechanisms in patients affected by breast cancer across different stages of illness
2016
Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of alexithymia and defence mechanisms on the quality of life of patients affected by breast cancer at different stages of the disease. Methods A convenience sample of 110 patients with breast cancer was involved in the study: 41 were receiving adjuvant chemotherapyafter surgery, 29 had disease-free survival in follow-up and 40 were receiving chemotherapy for metastatic disease. Quality of life, alexithymia and defence mechanisms were assessed using the following instruments: EORTC QLQ-C30-BR23, Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and Defense Mechanism Inventory (DMI). Results Compared to the other groups, patients receiving chemoth…
Type D Personality and Alexithymia: Common Characteristics of Two Different Constructs. Implications for Research and Clinical Practice
2018
In the last few decades, particular attention has been paid to the role of personality specific traits that can affect the loss of health, i.e., Type D personality and Alexithymia. They have been conceptualized in a different period, this means that they are different both for their theoretical positions and their empirical studies. Some authors have speculated that there is a potential conceptual overlap between Type D personality and alexithymia constructs but there is a shortcoming in the literature. The aim of the study was to examine the potential overlap between the constructs of type D personality and alexithymia, replicating previous two studies, to extend these findings to Italian …