TY - JOUR
T1 - Alexithymia in pain patients
AU - Kreitler, Shulamith
AU - Gohar, Hana
AU - Eldar, Ann
AU - Ezer, Tamar
AU - Niv, David
PY - 1996
Y1 - 1996
N2 - Alexithymia (a disorder denoting a lack of verbally expressed feelings) was found to characterize pain patients. The goals of the study were: (i) to examine the centrality of the role of alexithymia in pain patients; and (ii) to clarify the nature of alexithymia, namely, whether the low level of manifest emotionality reflects a linguistic-cognitive or an affective disorder. In a within-group design we tested the demographic, clinical, psychiatric, emotional and pain-descriptive correlates of alexithymia. The subjects 86 pain patients - were administered questionnaires assessing demographic and clinical features, trait anxiety and anger (Spielberger's STPI-X), inhibited anger (Kreitler and Kreitler), psychiatric tendencies (Derogatis, BSI) and pain experience (McGill Pain Questionnaire and Meaning Pain Scale). The results were that alexithymia was related significantly to 13 correlates of different domains, especially: higher age; lower education; higher symptom severity, anxiety, interpersonal sensitivity and inhibited anger and lower paranoid and hostilc tendencies. The findings confirm the central role of alexithymia in regard to pain, and support the view that alexithymia is an affective disorder. The treatment implication is to promote overt emotional expression in pain patients.
AB - Alexithymia (a disorder denoting a lack of verbally expressed feelings) was found to characterize pain patients. The goals of the study were: (i) to examine the centrality of the role of alexithymia in pain patients; and (ii) to clarify the nature of alexithymia, namely, whether the low level of manifest emotionality reflects a linguistic-cognitive or an affective disorder. In a within-group design we tested the demographic, clinical, psychiatric, emotional and pain-descriptive correlates of alexithymia. The subjects 86 pain patients - were administered questionnaires assessing demographic and clinical features, trait anxiety and anger (Spielberger's STPI-X), inhibited anger (Kreitler and Kreitler), psychiatric tendencies (Derogatis, BSI) and pain experience (McGill Pain Questionnaire and Meaning Pain Scale). The results were that alexithymia was related significantly to 13 correlates of different domains, especially: higher age; lower education; higher symptom severity, anxiety, interpersonal sensitivity and inhibited anger and lower paranoid and hostilc tendencies. The findings confirm the central role of alexithymia in regard to pain, and support the view that alexithymia is an affective disorder. The treatment implication is to promote overt emotional expression in pain patients.
KW - Alexithymia
KW - Anger
KW - Anxiety
KW - Emotional expression
KW - Pain descriptors
KW - Pain patient
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0029554056&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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AN - SCOPUS:0029554056
SN - 0169-1112
VL - 8
SP - 295
EP - 306
JO - Pain Clinic
JF - Pain Clinic
IS - 4
ER -