[Common foundation of alexithymia and expressive suppression].

BACKGROUND

International studies could already prove a correlation between alexithymia and expressive suppression. This relationship has only been marginally considered in the German literature so far. The prioritized aim of the present study was to investigate a correlative and factorial relationship between alexithymia and expressive suppression.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

A total of 317 persons participated in an online survey. Data on alexithymia and expressive suppression were collected using the German versions of the Toronto alexithymia scale (TAS-26) and the emotion regulation questionnaire (ERQ).

RESULTS

The results showed highly significant correlations between the TAS-26 subscale "difficulty in identifying feelings" and the ERQ scale "suppression" (r = 0.5;  < 0.001) and between the TAS-26 subscale "difficulty in describing feelings" and the ERQ scale "suppression" (r = 0.64;  < 0.001). The results of an exploratory factor analysis revealed a two-factor solution with common factor for the TAS-26 subscales "difficulty in identifying feelings" and "difficulty in describing feelings" and the ERQ scale "suppression" with a common variance of 38.2% (χ = 363.843,  < 0.001, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin, KMO, value = 0.699).

CONCLUSION

The results indicate that the TAS-26 scales in the components "difficulty in identifying feelings" and "difficulty in describing feelings" and the ERQ scale "suppression" in the component of "expressive suppression" have a common construct, which is referred to with the term speechlessness.