Alexithymia according to Bucci's multiple code theory: A preliminary investigation with healthy and hypertensive individuals

Trani, Michela Di; Mariani, Rachele; Renzi, Alessia; Greenman, Paul S.; Solano, Luigi

doi:10.1111/papt.12158

Cited by 26 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…The Italian Sensory Somatic Dictionary (ISensD) is a list of Italian words related to the body and bodily activities, and to sensory processes and/or descriptions of symptoms (Di Trani, Mariani, Renzi, Greenman, & Solano, 2018 ). The number of ISensD words in the speech sample is a measure of the arousal of bodily subsymbolic aspects of emotion schemas.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linguistic features of the therapeutic alliance in the first session: a psychotherapy process study

Negri

Christian

Mariani³

et al. 2019

ResPsy

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Critical aspects of the therapeutic alliance appear to be established as early as the first session. Specifically, the affective bond between the therapeutic dyad appears to develop early in treatment and tends to remain stable over time, while agreements on goals and tasks tend to fluctuate over the course of treatment. Are there distinguishable early signs of a strong therapeutic alliance? In this study, we examined how some linguistic measures indicative of joint emotional elaboration correlated with a measure of the therapeutic alliance assessed within a single session. Initial intake sessions with 40 patients with varying diagnoses were videotaped, transcribed, and analyzed using linguistic measures of referential process and then scored with the Segmented Working Alliance Inventory-Observer form. Results showed that patients who were rated as more emotionally engaged in relating their experiences and then reflecting on them by mid-session also had higher scores in the therapeutic alliance by the final part of that same session. An implication of this study is that the interpersonal factors facilitating elaboration of inner experience, including elements of warmth, safety, and analytic trust, are related to the development of early therapeutic alliance. These findings did not appear to be dependent on the patient’s psychopathology. This study is one in a growing line of research exploring how patients speak rather than just the content of what they say.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linguistic features of the therapeutic alliance in the first session: a psychotherapy process study

Negri

Christian

Mariani³

et al. 2019

ResPsy

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“…In the MCT, it is hypothesized that trauma or conflicts can disturb an appropriate development of the three systems, which is also disruptive to the RP’s functioning. This kind of disconnection can be applied to both somatic and mental pathology [ 22 , 23 , 24 ], and it could be increased if there are aversive experiences for negative events and emotions, since some distancing processes are activated [ 25 ]. The greater the disconnection is, the more a person feels emotional arousal without being able to communicate their experience with words.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Putting into Words the COVID-19 Lockdown Experience: Psychological Symptoms and the Referential Process

2021

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The coronavirus pandemic is a unique collective event which has affected the physical and psychological health of all individuals. Restrictions imposed by governments to counteract this situation have represented risk factors for developing psychopathological symptoms. This study aims to explore the relationship between psychological symptoms and the referential process (RP). Forty-eight healthy participants (25 males, mean age = 39.3; SD = 16.6) completed a demographic questionnaire and the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) through an online platform and wrote about their experience 3 weeks after the imposition of the lockdown. Different linguistic measures of the RP were applied to the narratives. The logical functions expressed through written narratives (The Italian Reflection Dictionary score, IREF) showed significant positive correlations with the SCL-90-R General Score Index (GSI) and different SCL-90-R subscales (depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsiveness, interpersonal sensitivity, hostility, and paranoid ideation). On the contrary, the reorganization and reflection function related to emotional events (The Italian Weighted Reflection and Reorganization List score, IWRRL) showed significant negative correlations with the SCL-90-R’s GSI and different subscales (obsessive-compulsiveness, depression, anxiety). The results highlight the relationship between psychological symptoms and complex defense mechanisms based on the intellectualization of negative emotions and a positive strategy of reorganization based on emotional elaboration. These results suggest the importance of supporting collective elaborations of citizens in the context of the pandemic.

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“…Several studies have highlighted that alexithymia is associated with deficits in labelling emotional facial expressions, with reduced perceptual abilities, with impaired semantic representations of emotional concepts and with neither specific emotional facial expressions nor a specific valence (Grynberg et al, 2012;Pedrosa Gil et al, 2009;Ridout, Thom, & Wallis, 2010). Moreover, a recent study by Di Trani, Mariani, Renzi, Greenman and Solano (2018) has revealed a relationship between alexithymia levels and several indexes related to RP in the general population. By contrast, no studies have explored the connections between RP and alexithymia in clinical process, such as expression writing technique, in order to examine several implications of alexithymia for clinical treatments.…”

Section: Introduction Expressive Writing Interventions and The Alexithymia Constructmentioning

confidence: 99%

Giving words to emotions: the use of linguistic analysis to explore the role of alexithymia in an expressive writing intervention

Renzi

Mariani

Trani

et al. 2020

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Expressive writing techniques are methods focusing on written emotional expression that require people to write about traumatic or difficult experiences, with the objective of promoting an elaboration of these events. The general aim of the study is to investigate the influence of alexithymia, a deficit in emotional regulation processes, on the effects of an expressive writing intervention, analyzing the writing protocols through the use of the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWIC) and Referential Process (RP) linguistic measures via IDAAP software. Thirty-five women undergoing an assisted reproductive treatment participated in the study and filled out a sociodemographic questionnaire, the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale. They also underwent three session of writing, following a request that they write about their emotions regarding their current situation. The women enrolled were divided into two groups: low alexithymia and high alexithymia, comprising individuals with a TAS-20 total score lower or higher than the mean, respectively. Analyses within the groups during the three writing sessions revealed that the women with low alexithymia reported a greater number of words expressing affectivity, sadness and future perspective, whereas no significances in the high alexithymia group emerged. Moreover, when analysing differences between the groups, high-alexithymia women reported lower scores in RP indexes and fewer words expressing sadness, future perspectives and we verbal. In conclusion, these preliminary findings may confirm the hypothesis that alexithymia affects the effectiveness of expressive writing through a difficulty in becoming involved in the writing process and a lack of symbolizing processes.

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Alexithymia according to Bucci's multiple code theory: A preliminary investigation with healthy and hypertensive individuals

Cited by 26 publications

References 44 publications

Linguistic features of the therapeutic alliance in the first session: a psychotherapy process study

Linguistic features of the therapeutic alliance in the first session: a psychotherapy process study

Putting into Words the COVID-19 Lockdown Experience: Psychological Symptoms and the Referential Process

Giving words to emotions: the use of linguistic analysis to explore the role of alexithymia in an expressive writing intervention

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