Psychiatric comorbidities
M. Alan Menter, Caitriona Ryan in Psoriasis, 2017
Alexithymia is a personality construct characterized by difficulty experiencing, identifying, and expressing feeling24 leading to a deficit in the self-regulation of affect.42 The rate of alexithymia in psoriasis has been reported to range from 25% to 39%.43 It has been suggested that the higher rate of alexithymia may account for a decreased ability for psychological adjustment.24 In fact, alexithymia has been reported to be a risk factor for anxiety and, to a lesser extent, depression and stress in psoriasis.24 Reports of the association between anxiety and alexithymia, however, are conflicting.43 The impact that alexithymia has on disability in those with psoriasis is also controversial with some reporting no significant relation24 and others suggesting higher rates of unemployment, and decreased work productivity and activity in psoriatic patients with alexithymia.44 Alexithymia has not been related to clinical severity of psoriasis.45
Psychological Effects of COVID-19
Hanadi Talal Ahmedah, Muhammad Riaz, Sagheer Ahmed, Marius Alexandru Moga in The Covid-19 Pandemic, 2023
In addition to psychological disorders, people faced cognitive and emotional disorders during COVID-19 outbreak. People with alexithymia have ordinarily high levels of depression, apprehension problems and psychosomatic problems as compared to non-alexithymic during COVID-19 situation [46]. It was noted that a high level of depression is due to the alexithymia, that was reliable to previous research on alexithymia and depressing feelings [47]. Alexithymia is an emotional disorder and appearance of scarcity disorder that is described by condensed capability to recognize and expressing the emotions [48]. People affected in alexithymia feel difficult to avail social support [49] and may develop harsh interpersonal lifestyle [50], also fail to identify their emotions or to respond to other’s emotions [51].
Disorders of Emotion Recognition and Expression
Tom M. McMillan, Rodger Ll. Wood in Neurobehavioural Disability and Social Handicap following Traumatic Brain Injury, 2017
Alexithymia is a personality construct that has been linked to deficits of emotional perception and expression in clinical and non-clinical populations and therefore may help explain deficits of emotion recognition and empathy after TBI. Alexithymia is a multifaceted construct comprising the following salient features: (a) difficulty identifying feelings; (b) difficulty distinguishing between feelings and bodily sensations of emotional arousal; (c) difficulty describing feelings to other people; (d) constricted imaginal processes evidenced by paucity of fantasies; and (e) a stimulus-bound, externally-oriented thinking style (Taylor, Bagby & Parker, 1997, p. 29). Clinically, patients exhibiting alexithymia demonstrate little knowledge about their own feelings and, in most instances, are unable to link them with memories, fantasies, higher level affects or specific situations. In addition, alexithymia has also been associated clinically with a tendency towards social conformity, a tendency to avoid conflicts, a repressive and avoidant coping style, a paucity of facial and gestural expressions, a preoccupation with one’s body and the adequacy of its physiological functions (De Gucht, Fischler & Heiser, 2004; Wood & Doughty, 2013).
The association between eveningness and autistic traits: Mediating effects of depression and insomnia
Published in Chronobiology International, 2023
Ellie Harris, Richard Carciofo
Furthermore, autism is associated with significantly higher rates of psychiatric illnesses (Leyfer et al. 2006). Eaves and Ho (2008) found that 77% of their sample of autistic young adults had comorbid diagnoses, such as depression and bipolar disorder. However, in considering potential mechanisms involved in the high prevalence of psychiatric illness in autistic individuals, the associations between chronotype and mental health in the autistic population has been under researched, although there is evidence that sleep may be a mediator. Türkoğlu et al. (2020) found that higher autistic behaviour scores were associated with eveningness, and sleep disturbances were a mediating factor between eveningness and autistic symptom severity. Also, adults with diagnoses of ADHD or autism were more likely to have an evening chronotype, and to have poorer sleep (Migliarese et al. 2020). Furthermore, Ahn et al. (2021) investigated inter-relationships between chronotype, depression, and alexithymia. Alexithymia is characterised by having difficulty describing feelings, difficulty distinguishing bodily sensations and feelings, and a tendency to focus on external experiences rather than internal experiences (Sifneos 1973). Ahn et al. (2021) found that eveningness was associated with alexithymia and that this relationship was mediated by depression symptoms. These findings are particularly important as it has been shown that there are high rates of alexithymia in autistic individuals (Kinnaird et al. 2019), so it opens the possibility that depression could also mediate the relationship between morningness-eveningness and autistic traits.
Relevant associations between alexithymia and health-literacy in persons with psoriasis
Published in Journal of Dermatological Treatment, 2022
Marie H. Larsen, Yndis A. Staalesen Strumse, Christine R. Borge, Marit H. Andersen, Astrid K. Wahl
Alexithymia is defined as a personality trait characterized by a reduced ability to recognize and verbalize internal emotions, where thoughts tend to be fixated on the external environment (14). The cognitive style of alexithymia is marked by concrete, down-to-earth, externally focused thoughts, rather than introspection, fantasy, or daydreaming (15). Hence, persons with alexithymia usually show little insight into their feelings, symptoms, and motivation, and may experience confusion, give vague answers, and report physical states when asked about their feelings (16,17). Additionally, they also have difficulties feeling and expressing empathic responses making it challenging to establish and maintain interpersonal relationships (18). Consequently, alexithymia may be considered as one of several risk factors for a variety of medical and psychological disorders, as it may increase the proneness to their development in addition to genetic determinants and emotional stress (17). Information on the prevalence of alexithymia with psoriasis and the association between alexithymia and the burden of psoriasis is limited, but several studies have found a substantially elevated prevalence among persons with psoriasis (15–32%) compared to healthy controls (10–13%; 14,19,20). A recent study found that patients with alexithymia showed a higher burden of psoriasis, including significant impairment of quality of life, higher levels of anxiety and higher risk of depression and anxiety compared with patients without alexithymia (19).
Level of alexithymia as a measure of personality dysfunction in avoidant personality disorder
Published in Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, 2021
Sebastian Simonsen, Ingeborg Ullveit-Moe Eikenaes, Bo Bach, Elfrida Kvarstein, Matthias Gondan, Stine Bjerrum Møller, Theresa Wilberg
Our first hypothesis states simply that patients with AvPD will be heterogeneous with regard to alexithymia and that differences between groups will be evident across clinical characteristics. We found a mean TAS total score of 57.2 (SD = 10.2). As hypothesized, considerable heterogeneity with regard to alexithymia was found, with 16 patients below the alexithymia boundary (29%), 19 in the intermediate range (34%) and 21 patients with high alexithymia (37%). On TAS-20 the mean total scores of the Norwegian and Danish samples were 59.9 (SD = 8.5) and 54.9 (SD = 11.1), respectively, but this difference was not statistically significant (t [54] = 1.89, p = 0.063). Furthermore, although overall significant differences between alexithymia groups were found on most measures of psychopathology and personality functioning, both the absolute and standardized differences (Hedge’s g) were mostly small to moderate. However, large effect sizes were found for the CIP subscale Cold and ECR Attachment avoidance.
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