Autobiographical narratives in relation to affect regulation in an Italian sample of patients in an acute phase of Anorexia Nervosa

Abstract

Purpose: This research aims to analyze the relationship between emotional regulation and the symbolic process in autobiographical narratives in a group of individuals diagnosed with restrictive Anorexia Nervosa (AN), compared to a non-clinical group. The study is framed within Multiple Code Theory MCT (Bucci, 1997; 2021) which considers mind-body integration. The purposes of this study are to investigate whether AN will show greater alexithymia and emotional dysregulation than the non-clinical group; and whether the specific linguistic and symbolic features, such as somatic-sensory words, affect words, and difficulty in symbolizing process will predict the AN group.Methods: Twenty-nine female participants hospitalized with AN in an acute phase (mean age 19.8 ±4.1) and thirty-six non-clinical female participants (mean age 21 ±2.4) were selected through snow-ball sampling. The participants completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), the Profile of Mood of State (POMS), the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), and a Relationship Anecdotes Paradigm Interview (RAP). The Referential Process (RP) Linguistic Measures has been applied to transcribed interviews. A T-test for paired samples and logistic binary regression has been performed.Results: AN presented a significantly higher emotional dysregulation through the ERQ, TAS20 and POMS measures. Specifically, AN showed higher ER expression/suppression strategies, fewer functional cognitive strategies, higher alexithymia, and higher mood dysregulation. Specific linguistic features such as sensory-somatic, affect word, and difficulty in RP symbolizing, predict the AN group (R2 = .349; χ2 = 27,929; df = 3; p = .001).Conclusions: Emotional dysregulation is connected to AN symptoms and autobiographical narratives. The results can help a clinical assessment phase showing specific linguistic features in AN patients.