Empathic deficits and alexithymia in trauma‐related impulsive aggression

Abstract

Our long term interest is to develop a developmental model of impulsive aggression based on a confluence of social, psychological and biological features. This approach incorporates neurobiological research, which has identified language processing deficits as a unique characteristic of impulsive aggressors and extends it to include emotional deficits. As an initial test of this hypothesis, we examined whether empathy and alexithymia were associated with impulsive aggression. Regressions were performed to explore the associations among impaired empathy, alexithymia, impulsive aggression, verbal and physical general aggression. Among impulsive aggressive veterans (n=38) recruited from a VA trauma clinic, alexithymia predicted impulsive aggression and empathic deficits predicted verbal aggression. Neither emotional awareness deficit predicted general physical aggression in this middle-aged sample. Results suggested that empathic deficits were associated with general verbal aggression, but alexithymia was uniquely associated with impulsive aggression. Consideration of alexithymia in impulsive aggression has implications for its etiology, prevention and treatment.

Children’s Alexithymia Measure (CAM): A New Instrument for Screening Difficulties with Emotional Expression

“…For example, some individuals with alexithymia have difficulty encoding (interpreting) facial expressions (Pollatos, Herbert, Schandry, & Gramann, 2008), an inability to maintain intimate social relationships because of difficulty in regulating negative emotions (Ciarrochi, Heaven, & Suparadeeprasit, 2008), inadequate ability to provide accurate and helpful narratives about past events (Peace & Bouvier, 2008), difficulty using effective problem-solving methods due to limited skills in understanding the perspectives of others (Christopher & Thomas, 2009), limited capacity to learn from past mistakes (Ferguson et al, 2009), language processing deficits (Teten, Miller, Bailey, Dunn, & Kent, 2008), and reduced executive control (Frewen et al, 2008).…”

The influence of dysfunctional impulsivity and alexithymia on aggressive behavior of psychiatric patients

“…Alexithymia is implicated in a wide variety of psychological problems, such as depression, schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder (Samur et al, 2013;Ogrodniczuk et al, 2012;Daeyoung et al, 2011;Van 't Wout, 2006). Studies also revealed that alexithymia is indeed associated with aggressive behavior (Teten et al, 2008;Parry, 2012;Manninen et al, 2011).…”

Male‐to‐female sexual aggression among Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam veterans: Co‐occurring substance abuse and intimate partner aggression

“…Examining aggressive subtypes provides clues to the etiology, and thus the treatment and prevention of different forms of violence. Our past work suggests impulsive aggression is associated with trauma exposure (Teten, Miller, Bailey, Dunn, & Kent, 2008). Given the unclear association between PTSD and veteran sexual aggression, we were particularly interested in examining the association between aggressive subtypes and sexual violence among a group of veterans with and without PTSD.…”