Search

Verbal affective expression and psychometric variables were studied in a group of 5 duodenal ulcer and 6 irritable bowel patients. The aim was to assess the relevance of the alexithymia contruct to the distinction between both groups. Irritable bowel patients exhibited higher scores on Zung's depressiveness scale. Alexithymia scores were significantly higher for duodenal ulcer patients. Regarding verbal affective expression a discrimination was possible between both groups in the scale of hostility directed inward. Ulcer patients expressed less affect. These findings suggest that a distinction is possible at the behavioral level between patients with functional vs. patients with organic gastrointestinal illness, thus rendering the concept of alexithymia relevant to this nosological categorization.

It is suggested in this paper that alexithymia may be a graded behavioral characteristic in much the same way as psychological dimensions are. Under this assumption every person would possess an alexithymic score, however low it could be, and the basis for distinguishing between diagnostic groups would thence be quantitative rather than qualitative. The measurement of alexithymia in any given individual poses two main problems: the nature of the underlying phenomenon and the instruments that should be used for its depiction. Whether alexithymia is a trait, a state, or both cannot be answered confidently at present. On the other hand, its quantitative assessment depends upon an interaction between phenomenon, observer and situation. Some data bearing on the application of the Beth Israel Alexithymic and Psychosomatic Questionnaire by informed and uninformed interviewers suggest the need for reliability studies of this instrument. Also advanced is the possibility that some aspects of the syndrome (reflected differently in the questionnaire items) might be easier to detect or more amenable to quantitative assessment, thus suggesting that some weighting of items is needed in order to obtain a total alexithymia score.