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This paper describes a skills-based intervention for the treatment of alexithymia. The intervention incorporates components to address the following three areas: the relationship between alexithymia and early life experiences, identifying feelings and expressing feelings. The efficacy of the intervention was explored using three individual case studies extending over 16-24 weekly 1-hour sessions. A number of questionnaires were administered at five time intervals. The results suggest that the treatment was effective in reducing alexithymia within the three individuals and in helping them to clarify, identify and describe their feelings. Following treatment the participants were less ambivalent about expressing their feelings and more attentive to their emotional states. The results were generally maintained at a 1-year follow-up for two of the three cases.
Alexithymia is a psychiatric term meaning lack of words for emotion (Sifneos, 1967) and it is a relatively recent term, having been coined in the late 1960s. The newness of the concept is reflected in the small number of well-validated assessment instruments in the area (Stephenson, 1996; Taylor, 1984) and the lack of research studies exploring the efficacy of treatment interventions. Alexithymia is characterised by the following:
(a) difficulty describing feelings; (b) difficulty distinguishing between feelings and the bodily sensations that accompany emotional arousal; (c) lack of introspection; (d) social conformity; and (e) impoverished fantasy life and poor dream recall (Taylor, 1994, p. 64).
Alexithymia is an important clinical concept. Research suggests that in a normal population more than 8% of men and 1-2 % of women fall within the alexithymic range (Blanchard, Arena, & Pallmeyer, 1981). These rates are higher within other populations: Mendelson (1982) found 47% of chronic pain patients were alexithymic and research suggests it maybe an underlying issue associated with a range of problems such as eating disorders (Earth, 1994), substance abuse, posttraumatic stress disorder and depression (Taylor, 1984). Alexithymia may be linked to illness behaviour and increased mortality rates (Lumley, Tomakowsky, & Torosian, 1997), as an ability to identify and express emotion may act as a protective factor against physical and mental ill health. A lack of emotional awareness impacts greatly on an individual's quality of life and is a major impediment to a person's ability to successfully connect with others and to have close and meaningful...