Some Reflections about the Conception of ‘Psychosomatic Patients’ in the French School

Alexithymic Asthmatics: Age and Alexithymia across the Life Span

“…In this regard, the presently available information is both speculative and inferential. Third, sociocultural variables related to age may contribute to the expression of alexithymic characteristics [8,9).…”

Alexithymia and the Split Brain

“…While it is not likely that the results were an artifact of epilepsy in the commissurotomy patients, our study of course would have been en hanced by the inclusion of a second control group of epileptic subjects. By matching gen eral socioeconomic circumstances in the ex perimental and control groups, and still de tecting group differences, negative evidence has been found for the suggestions [9][10][11] that alexithymia is merely an artifact of social class. The results obtained here, and in the 2 papers to follow, show rather that alexithy mia is a real phenomenon with a biological substrate.…”

“…Given that Borens et al [9], Cremerius [10][11], and Smith [12] observed a negative relationship between alexithymia and social class, and suggested [9][10] that alexithymia is a mere artifact of social class, the find ing of alexithymia in these split-brain patients [4][5] was possibly confounded by social class and related sociodcmographic variables.…”

“…The 4 Factor LI variables, which were all positively correlated, were next refactored. The results of this analysis are shown in table III (col umns [11][12].…”

Alexithymia and Chronic Respiratory Disease

“…Etiologically, there is significant dis agreement as to the development of alexithy mia with psychodynamic [12], neurological [13], and sociocultural [14,15] factors as po tentiating its development. Controversy has also abounded in the area of whether or not alexithymia can be treated psychotherapeutically and if it is a continuous dimension or if it fluctuates.…”