Management of the Assaultive Adolescent

Delinquency in male adolescents: The role of alexithymia and family structure

“…Furthermore, the prevalence rate of alexithymic individuals in the delinquent group (47.2%) is similar to rates that have been reported in studies of patients with psychiatric disorders (for reviews, see Taylor, 2000;Taylor et al, 1997), and the rate in the control group (21.7%) is in agreement with previous studies which showed that approximately 23.5% of ''normal adolescents'' are alexithymic (Horton, Gewirtz, & Kreutter, 1992). These results are consistent with previous reports indicating: (1) that family disruption has an impact on delinquency (Bailey, Thornton, & Weaver, 1994;Wells & Rankin, 1991) and ( 2) that adolescent offenders show deficits in emotional understanding and communication (Marohn, 1990(Marohn, , 1992. Furthermore, our results show that family structure and alexithymia clearly emerge as the strongest discriminatory factors for juvenile delinquency, indicating that these variables are significantly associated with group membership.…”

“…Thirty years ago, Nemiah et al (1976) indicated that alexithymic patients ''may on occasion manifest brief but violent outbursts of affective behaviours'' (p. 432), but are unaware of underlying feelings expressed. Since then, several authors have published clinical and theoretical works suggesting the presence of alexithymia among juvenile offenders (Jeammet, 2001;Marohn, 1990Marohn, , 1992Schreiber, 1992). However, empirical works studying alexithymic characteristics in this population are rare.…”

Calming an Escalated Psychiatric Milieu

“…By the 1970s, the interactional nature of milieu aggression was increasingly discussed in the context of transference and countertransference (Lion & Pastemack, 1973;Amini, Burke, & Edgerton, 1978;Marohn, 1981;Rinsley, 1967;Treischman, Wttaker, & Brendtro, 1969). This explanation found as easy home in inpatient chdd/adolescent psychiatry, where a tradition of analytic thought had strongly influenced practice (Whittaker, 1979).In the transference/countertransference scheme, the key to examining patients' acting out was understanding the behavioral dynamics of the child; the key to intervention was awareness of the staff countertransference that particular behaviors evoked (Marohn, 1992;Redl, 1986). What surfaced was the strong caution that to control acting out and aggression staff must be aware of how their own countertransference potentiates the children's negative behaviors (Berlin, Critchely, & Rossman, 1984;Cotton, 1989).…”

The relation between experiential avoidance, alexithymia and emotion regulation in inpatient adolescents

“…Like emotion dysregulation, alexithymia has been implicated in a variety of adult and adolescent psychopathology. While research in adolescents is very limited, a literature review by Parker, Eastabrook, Keefer, and Wood (2010) revealed that alexithymia is associated with eating disorders (Zonnevijlle-Bender, van Goozen, Cohen-Kettenis, van Elburg, & van Engeland, 2002; Zonnevylle-Bender, van Goozen, Cohen-Kettenis, van Elburg, & van Engeland, 2004), somatic complaints (Ebeling, Moilane, Linna, & Rasanen, 2001; Rieffe et al, 2007; Rieffe, Oosterveld, & Meerum Terwogt, 2006), dissociation (Sayar, Kose, Grabe, & Topbas, 2005), depressed mood (Honkalampi et al, 2009), behavior problems (Honkalampi et al, 2009; Zimmermann, 2006), risk-taking (Brejard, Bonnet, & Pedinielli, 2005), substance use (Dorard et al, 2008) and violence in adolescents (Marohn, 1992). More generally, Ciarrochi, Heaven, and Supavadeeprasit (2008) determined that lower emotion identification skills predict increases in fear, decreases in positive affect, and decreases in the quality and quantity of social support in adolescents and, in boys specifically, lower emotion identification skills predict increases in sadness.…”