Department of Developmental Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, 2300 RB, Netherlands.
Psychol Health. 2009 Oct;24(8):881-93. doi: 10.1080/08870440801998970.
Children with many somatic complaints seem to report problems with emotion identification and communication ('alexithymia'). The aim of this study was to verify whether children with somatic complaints do indeed show signs of alexithymia. We compared 35 children (M age = 10.99, SD = 13 months) with many somatic complaints with 34 children (M age = 11.03, SD = 12 months) reporting few complaints on the basis of a self-report alexithymia scale and tasks that require the skill to identify and communicate emotions: an emotional attention task, a structured interview about own emotions, and a mixed-emotion task. Children were also asked about the intensity of the reported emotions. Compared to children with few complaints, children with many complaints seemed to have higher self-reports of alexithymia. However, these results were explained by difficulty in communicating negative internal states and experiencing indefinable internal states, rather than difficulty in identifying emotions. In addition, children with many complaints reported higher intensities of fear and sadness. The children did not differ in their attention to emotions or causes of emotions. Children with many somatic complaints more often described previous emotional experiences and showed better abilities in identifying multiple emotions. Children with many somatic complaints thus show more negative emotional processing, but the alexithymia-hypothesis was unsupported.
许多躯体抱怨的儿童似乎报告在情绪识别和交流方面存在问题（“述情障碍”）。本研究的目的是验证是否确实存在许多躯体抱怨的儿童表现出述情障碍的迹象。我们根据自我报告的述情障碍量表以及需要识别和交流情绪的技能任务，将 35 名（M 年龄=10.99，SD=13 个月）有许多躯体抱怨的儿童与 34 名（M 年龄=11.03，SD=12 个月）报告躯体抱怨较少的儿童进行比较。儿童还被要求报告所报告情绪的强度。与报告躯体抱怨较少的儿童相比，报告躯体抱怨较多的儿童似乎有更高的自我报告述情障碍。然而，这些结果可以通过在交流负面内部状态和体验不可定义的内部状态方面的困难来解释，而不是识别情绪的困难。此外，有许多躯体抱怨的儿童报告的恐惧和悲伤强度更高。儿童在对情绪的注意力或情绪的原因方面没有差异。有许多躯体抱怨的儿童更频繁地描述以前的情绪体验，并表现出更好的识别多种情绪的能力。因此，有许多躯体抱怨的儿童表现出更多的负面情绪处理，但述情障碍假说未得到支持。
