College maladjustment may be related to alexithymia constructs with weakness of ego strength.

The authors examined the associations of scores on a measure of alexithymia and related basic dimensions of personality on college maladjustment in a sample of 387 students. Scores on two alexithymia constructs (difficulty identifying feelings and difficulty describing feelings) were significantly and positively correlated with scores on college maladjustment. Partial correlations controlling for scores on ego strength eliminated significant differences apparent in the simple correlations. College maladjustment may be related to the two alexithymia constructs with weakness of ego strength.