Emotional awareness in substance‐dependent patients

Abstract

We explored emotional awareness in substance-dependent patients and its relationships to self-reported alexithymia. Sixty-four outpatients with drug dependence or alcohol dependence were evaluated before the beginning of treatment with the Hamilton Depressive Scale and the Covi Anxiety Scale, and they completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS). Subjects exhibited low levels of emotional awareness and TAS-20 scores were high. Both measures were not related to depressive and anxious symptomatology. This research is the first to provide LEAS results with substance-dependent patients and highlights their deficits in emotions' differentiation and complexity. The lack of a relationship between LEAS and TAS-20 is discussed from the methodological and theoretical points of view.

Alexithymia, Emotional Awareness and Perceived Dysfunctional Parental Behaviors in Heroin Dependents

“…As literature suggests (Carton et al 2010;Jouanne et al 2005) LEAS scores in DG were significantly lower than in HG, both in awareness of self and others' emotions. Performances on LEAS pointed to fewer competencies in these patients for symbolizing emotional experience by explicit and differentiate forms, providing additional evidence for difficulties in processing and expressing the experience of distinct and complex emotions.…”

“…Thus, many addicts seem only to be capable of diminished levels of empathy (Jouanne et al 2005;Carton et al 2010), which is compatible with high levels of alexithymia. Similar to other studies with healthy samples (Lane et al 1996) alexithymia and emotional experience abilities studied in those drug users samples did not correlate significantly (Carton et al 2010) although constructs were inversely related as suggested by the literature.…”

Level of emotional awareness in the general French population: Effects of gender, age, and education level

“…One other important point concerns the clinical application of the scale, which allows one to characterize the emotional processes of patients in clinical populations such as substance‐dependent patients (Carton et al, 2010), patients with anxiety disorders (Novick‐Kline, Turk, Mennin, Hoyt, & Gallagher, 2005), psychiatric symptoms (Donges et al, 2005), or eating disorders (Bydlowski et al, 2005; Rommel et al, 2012).…”

“…After responding to a short questionnaire pertaining to sociodemographic information, the subjects from all three samples completed the LEAS. The three scorers of the LEAS are experimental psychologist/psychiatrists involved in the French validation of the tool or in different studies using the scale (Bydlowski et al, 2005; Carton et al, 2010; Rommel et al, 2012). After a comparison of the glossaries used and a common practicing of the LEAS scoring, 13 protocols were independently coded by the three evaluators.…”

Adult attachment and emotional awareness impairment: a multimethod assessment

“…Associations between subjective self-measures and performance-based measures are heterogeneous, with studies generally demonstrating either no relationship at all (Carton et al, 2010; Lumley, Gustavson, Partridge, & Labouvie-Vief, 2005; Subic-Wrana, Bruder, Thomas, Lane, & Kohle, 2005) or else positive or negative correlations between them (Lane, Sechrest, & Riedel, 1998; Lane, Sechrest, Riedel, Shapiro, & Kaszniak, 2000). LEAS and TAS-20 scores have also been shown to correlate differently in the presence of psychopathological disorders such as addiction (Jouanne, Edel & Carton, 2005; Lindsay & Ciarrochi, 2009).…”