Alexithymia and hypersensitivity to touch and palpation

Sivik, Tatjana

doi:10.1007/bf02691215

Cited by 41 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Also the finding and demonstration of a possible neurophysiological model of high sensitivity to the experience of pain among high alexithymic persons would support this hypothesis [32, 33]. Regarding the different stages of the unfolding stress episode, it could be expected that the bias would be at its largest at the lower intensities of the stress episode when the physiological cues are vague.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 53%

The Influence of Alexithymic Characteristics on the Self-Perception and Facial Expression of a Physiological Stress State

Näätänen

Ryynänen

Keltikangas‐Järvinen

1999

Psychother Psychosom

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Background: In spite of the connection of alexithymic characteristics to many stress-related disorders, little is known about the effects of these characteristics on the self-perception of stress, which may have functional value in the regulation of daily behavior. The present study assessed the influence of alexithymic characteristics on the self-perception of stress in relation to the corresponding physiological/expressive responses during and while recovering from a phasic stressor. Methods: A median split of the scores on the Toronto Alexithymia Scale was used to divide 32 healthy middle-aged men into two groups, a high alexithymia (HA) and a low alexithymia (LA) group. Both groups participated in a 3-min hand-grip task, followed by a 3-min recovery period. During these periods, subjects’ heart rate (HR) and facial electromyographical (EMG) activity on the corrugator supercilii and frontalis lateralis areas were measured and perceptions of exertion, unpleasantness and tension were self-rated. The perceptual style was assessed with the discrepancy scores: standardized scores of the physiological measures were subtracted from the corresponding standardized scores of the perceptions. Thus, positive scores indicated that self-reported perceptions exceeded the corresponding physiological or expressive activity (overestimation) and negative scores indicated the opposite (underestimation). Results: The HA group decreasingly underestimated exertion in relation to HR during the task and increasingly overestimated it during the recovery period. The HA group also overestimated unpleasantness in relation to the corrugator EMG response during the recovery period. Conclusions: High alexithymic characteristics seem to predispose to the delayed self-perception of physiological stress state so that the beginning of this state may remain subjectively unnoticed and the subjective recovery from it prolonged relative to the physical recovery. During this prolonged subjective recovery the feelings of unpleasantness are not facially expressed. The consequences of this style for health-related behavior are discussed.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 53%

The Influence of Alexithymic Characteristics on the Self-Perception and Facial Expression of a Physiological Stress State

Näätänen

Ryynänen

Keltikangas‐Järvinen

1999

Psychother Psychosom

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“…This indicates that the expression of strong emotions appears to decrease the experience of pain. Although researchers have discussed the degree of alexithymia (Sifneos, 1973) in fibromyalgia patients (Sivik, 1993;Lumley, Asselin & Norman,1997;Bojner Horwitz, 2004), the difficulty of identifying feelings rather than other dimensions of alexithymia seems to be associated with fibromyalgia . According to Kut et al, (2007), different role characters can also help to modulate pain, not only the strength of the emotional expression.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…That some fibromyalgia patients have difficulty putting their feelings into words, named as alexithymia (Sifneos 1973), is also something a number of researchers have found (Lumley, Asselin & Norman, 1997;Sivik, 1993;. In one study, 15% of the fibromyalgia patients were found to have alexithymia (Pedrosa et al, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Theater for, by and with fibromyalgia patients – Evaluation of emotional expression using video interpretation

Horwitz

Kowalski

Anderberg

2010

The Arts in Psychotherapy

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The healing function of theater is reflected in all human cultures. Today, therapists and scientists work with psychodrama and drama therapy, often describing theater as the art form closest to life itself. In a unique cooperation between professional actors and a dance movement therapist/pain researcher, patients with fibromyalgia have first been trained in body-and voice expression and thereafter acted out a drama onstage together with professional actors. A video interpretation technique was used to help patients interpret their own emotional expressions towards other actors and evaluate their perceived pain and selfrated health. The results of this feasibility study show that the variation of emotional expression from video interpretation is dependent upon whether or not the patient acts with an actor. The intensity of emotional expression increases significantly when acting together with a professional actor. The results also show an increase in self-rated health and a decrease in pain after three months of using this theater-based technique. A correlation between strong emotional expression and decreased pain was also observed. However, when patients did not actively participate in a theater play, their self-estimated pain was not significantly decreased. In this study, the cross-fertilization of culture/expressive arts and health care is presented as a new resource for pain treatment. In particular there may be a link between intense emotional expressions when acting with professional actors and decreased perceptions of pain. The paper also discusses the potential therapeutic value of working with professional actors in the treatment of other pain patients. Hopefully, this theater related method can contribute to developing collaboration between actors and creative art therapists and stimulate controlled studies of evidence-based science.

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“…The interaction between the factors involved in the preservation of life (genetic, neuroendocrine, immunological, societal, cultural, psychosocial) are always involved in the development of all kinds of diseases [1, 2, 3, 4]. A balanced interaction between different memory and communication systems of the human organism (mental, immunological, visceral, endocrinological, muscular and cardiovascular) is necessary for the preservation of health, and disturbances in this communication underlie the developments of disease.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%