Are there subtypes of alexithymia?

The cognitive and affective alexithymia dimensions in the regulation of sympathetic responses

“…Specifically, higher emotional cognitive capacities result in higher baseline GSR levels. These suggestive results seem to contradict the results of a very recent study (Bagby et al, 2009) indicating that high alexithymics (subjects scoring in the top 20% on the TAS-20) have higher GSR baseline levels. However, it should be noted that our baseline levels refer to the second preceding the stimulus onset.…”

“…Parker et al (1993), in Connelly and Denny (2007) published TAS cut-off scores for non-alexithymia (≤52), borderline (52-60), and alexithymia (N60). Since then many authors in alexithymia research work with extreme groups, ignoring subjects scoring in the borderline or middle range (for instance: Roedema and Simons, 1999;Stone and Nielson, 2001;Gündel et al, 2004, andConnelly andDenny, 2007;Bagby et al, 2009). Since the BVAQ provides scores on two dimensions, we complied to this approach by creating four extreme groups: (1) low capacities on both dimensions (AFF−, COG−; N = 15); (2) low on the cognitive dimension and high on the affective dimension (AFF+, COG−; N = 20); (3) high cognitive and low on the affective (AFF−, COG+; N = 16); and (4) high on both dimensions (AFF+, COG+; N = 15) (For reasons of convenience we applied a reversed scoring, thus a plus (+) indicates that the capacities are high, whereas a minus (−) corresponds to low capacities (alexithymia is related to low capacities)).…”

“…Some studies suggest that alexithymia is related to attenuated autonomic responses to stress (Newton and Contrada, 1994;Wehmer et al, 1995;Linden et al, 1996;Friedlander et al, 1997;Fukunishi et al, 1999;Roedema and Simons, 1999;Neumann et al, 2004), while others suggest the opposite (Papciak et al, 1985;Martin and Pihl, 1986;Infrasca, 1997;Waldstein et al, 2002;Gündel et al, 2004;Bagby et al, 2009) or found no effect (Rabavilas 1987;Franz et al, 1999;Stone and Nielson, 2001;Connelly and Denny, 2007). In the study conducted by Franz et al (1999) it should be noted that although the results demonstrated no difference in mean GSR response, they also demonstrated that the fluctuations in GSR responses were significantly greater in low alexithymics compared to high alexithymic subjects.…”

“…However, the relevant literature presents conflicting results. Several studies indicated that alexithymia is related to higher baseline or relaxation-levels (Papciak et al, 1985;Henry et al, 1992;Wehmer et al 1995;Infrasca, 1997;Fukunishi et al, 1999;Stone and Nielson, 2001;Gündel et al, 2004;Bagby et al, 2009). However other, though fewer, studies found lower values (Hyer et al, 1991) or failed to find effects (Newton and Contrada, 1994;Roedema and Simons, 1999;Neumann et al, 2004).…”

The left amygdala: A shared substrate of alexithymia and empathy

“…The validity of this two-factor structure has been confirmed through factor analyses (Bailey & Henry, 2007;Bekker, Bachrach, & Croon, 2007;Bermond et al, 2007; but see Bagby et al, 2009 for failure to support the two-factor structure). The correlation between the cognitive BVAQ factor and the total score of the TAS-20 is high (r = 0.80), indicating that they assess the same alexithymic features (Vorst & Bermond, 2001).…”