A Pragmatic Approach to the Concept of Alexithymia

State of the Art of Alexithymia Measurement

“…Findings of the study regarding the role of socioeconomic status as measured by educa tion agree with others in favor of no relation ship between the alexithymie traits and level of education [10][11][12].…”

“…The findings reported in the literature are incon sistent [9,11], The findings of this study sug gest that alexithymia is not influenced by age or socioeconomic status as measured by the level of education. These findings are consis tent with those of other studies [11] with the exception of Kleiger and Jones [12] who found that age was significantly correlated with the BIQ alexithymic ratings (r = 0.48). This discrepant finding could be accounted for by the differences in the range of age in the various populations where the variable of age was studied.…”

Alexithymic Asthmatics: Age and Alexithymia across the Life Span

“…Kleiger and Jones [4] found that age correlated with alexithymia scores regardless of disease type among a chronic respiratory illness population. Pierloot and Vinck [5], however, concluded that age and alexithymia were not well cor-related. The present study provides additional information regarding the nature of the relationship between age and alexithymia within one illness group.…”

Relationship between Alexithymia and Somatic Complaints in a Normal Sample

“…Pierloot and Vinck [1977] found alexithymia to relate most strongly to the percentage of so matic complaints on a checklist of worries. However, it is possible that this percentage was relatively high because of a low absolute number of reported worries among alexithy mies.…”