Suslow Thomas, Donges Uta-Susan
Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Martin Gropius Krankenhaus, Eberswalde, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2017 Oct 9;8:1758. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01758. eCollection 2017.
Alexithymia represents a multifaceted personality construct defined by difficulties in recognizing and verbalizing emotions and externally oriented thinking. According to clinical observations, experience of negative affects is exacerbated and experience of positive affects is decreased in alexithymia. Findings from research based on self-report indicate that all alexithymia facets are negatively associated with the experience of positive affects, whereas difficulties identifying and describing feelings are related to heightened negative affect. Implicit affectivity, which can be measured using indirect assessment methods, relates to processes of the impulsive system. The aim of the present study was to examine, for the first time, the relations between alexithymia components and and positive and negative affectivity in healthy adults. The 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale, the Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) were administered to two hundred and forty-one healthy individuals along with measures of depression and trait anxiety. Difficulties identifying feelings were correlated with explicit negative trait affect, depressive mood and trait anxiety. Difficulties describing feelings showed smaller but also significant correlations with depressive mood and trait anxiety but were not correlated with explicit state or trait affect as assessed by the PANAS. Externally oriented thinking was not significantly correlated with any of the implicit and explicit affect measures. According to our findings, an externally oriented, concrete way of thinking appears to be generally unrelated to dispositions to develop positive or negative affects. Difficulties identifying feelings seem to be associated with increased conscious negative affects but not with a heightened disposition to develop negative affects at an automatic response level.
述情障碍是一种多方面的人格结构，其特征是在识别和表达情感以及外向性思维方面存在困难。根据临床观察，述情障碍患者的负面影响体验会加剧，而正面影响体验会减少。基于自我报告的研究结果表明，述情障碍的所有方面都与正面影响体验呈负相关，而识别和描述情感的困难与更高的负面影响有关。内隐情感性可以通过间接评估方法来测量，它与冲动系统的过程有关。本研究的目的是首次考察健康成年人述情障碍成分与正负情感性之间的关系。对241名健康个体施测了20项多伦多述情障碍量表、内隐正负情感测验和正负情感量表（PANAS），同时还测量了抑郁和特质焦虑。识别情感的困难与外显负性特质情感、抑郁情绪和特质焦虑相关。描述情感的困难与抑郁情绪和特质焦虑也存在较小但显著的相关性，但与PANAS评估的外显状态或特质情感无关。外向性思维与任何内隐和外显情感测量指标均无显著相关性。根据我们的研究结果，一种外向性的、具体的思维方式似乎通常与产生正面或负面影响的倾向无关。识别情感的困难似乎与增加的有意识的负面情感有关，但与在自动反应水平上产生负面影响的更高倾向无关。
