In this study, 105 abused and nonabused women were examined for patterns of adult psychopathology associated with childhood sexual abuse and to test the extent to which these patterns are independent of other pathogenic properties of the family environment. Clinical and nonclinical Ss completed the Family Environment Scale, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), the Rorschach, and the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale. Greater nonspecific impairment among abused women may be a consequence, at least in part, of pathogenic family structure rather than sexual abuse per se. However, MMPI and Rorschach responses suggest sexual abuse may render victims especially vulnerable to specific disturbances i involving soma and self. Abuse was associated with greater use of dissociation, but covariance analysis revealed this effect to be accounted for by family pathology. There was no evidence that sexual trauma is associated with hypnotizability.

Objective The major purpose of this study was to examine alexithymia in relationship to depression and Axis II psychopathology in eating disorder patients. Method: Fifty‐three female inpatients representing three DSM‐IV eating disorder diagnostic groups and 14 control subjects completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS), the Eating Disorder Inventory‐2, and the Beck Depression Inventory within the first week of their hospital admission and shortly before discharge. Structured Clinical Interviews for DSM‐III‐R (SCID) I and II were also conducted. Multiple regression analyses were used to determine the contribution of mood, diagnostic, and personality variables in predicting the alexithymia score. Results and Discussion: After controlling for depression, only the TAS factor, “difficulty expressing feelings,” remained significantly different between groups, with the anorexia nervosa‐restrictors (AN‐R) having significantly higher scores than controls and bulimia nervosa patients. This factor appears to be a relatively stable personality characteristic in AN‐R. The level of depression and the presence of avoidant personality disorder were the most predictable variables for the alexithymia total score. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Eat Disord 23:277–286, 1998.

No abstract

Overview of the Researchn the late 1970s and 1980s, research interest in the sequelae of sexual I abuse mushroomed with the publication of dramatic clinical accounts describing the assessment and treatment of adult women who were abused as children (Butler, 1978; Herman, 1981). The demographics alone are striking: Estimates of the incidence of childhood sexual abuse range from 10% to 30% in the nonclinical adult female population (Briere