ALEXITHYMIA
(literally 'no words for feelings') refers to a person's inability to identify or verbally describe his or her feelings. The psychiatric syndrome is prevalent in patients with psychosomatic problems, substance abuse, and , but alexithymic symptoms occur along a continuum. Perhaps you know someone who doesn't seem to express their emotions very well. There is a standardized clinical scale for measuring called the Toronto Alexithymia Scale, or the 'TAS-20' for short. Soon, we will ask you to take this short test for us on the Internet.
The TAS-20 measures the following three facets of alexithymia:
1
difficulty identifying feelings and distinguishing them from bodily sensations (e.g. 'I have feelings that I can't quite identify')
2
or describing emotions to others (e.g. 'It is difficult for me to find the right words for my feelings')
3
an externally oriented style of thinking (e.g. 'I prefer talking to people about their daily activities rather than their feelings).
Items are answered using a five-point scale to indicate the extent to which the respondent agrees with each statement. The TAS-20 is considered to be a generally reliable and consistent measure of alexithymia.
Since the verbal and non-verbal expression of feelings varies widely across cultures and nationalities, it is plausible to expect that alexithymia will vary similarly. The alexithymia scale was designed to be adapted to different cultures and has been applied in a variety of different languages. There is some research showing that speakers of languages score higher on the test than English or European language speakers, and also that men tend to score higher than women. Thus, when we are investigating the hemispheric basis of alexithymia, it is important to consider the influences of culture and gender. This is partly why we want to recruit people to participate in this research over the Internet. In order to assess how culture interacts with alexithymia and the underlying neural processes that give rise to it, we need to collect data from people with varying cultural backgrounds.
