The Importance of Considering Alexithymia during Initial Stages of Intimate Partner Violence Interventions to Design Adjuvant Treatments

Abstract

Empirical evidence supports that individuals with alexithymia might be prone to certain types of violence, such as intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW). Moreover, considering that alexithymia is directly involved in behavior regulation, problems due to identifying and regulating emotional states might be postulated as responsible, at least in part, for the success of psychotherapeutic treatments designed for decreasing the future risk of reoffending. Therefore, we assessed whether alexithymia was a good predictor of the discontinuation of treatment (dropout) and the risk of recidivism during the initial stages of intervention in a sample of men convicted of IPVAW perpetration (n = 118), while controlling for potential confounding variables (i.e., socio-demographic characteristics, impulsivity, and drug misuse). Our data demonstrate that high alexithymic traits lead to dropout and a high risk of recidivism during the initial stages of treatment, remaining significant even after including potential confounding variables. Even though impulsivity and drug misuse increase the amount of explained variance, none of them moderates the association of alexithymia with dropout and/or reoffending. It should be noted that this study identified alexithymia as a direct modulator of violence due to its effects on discontinuing IPVAW treatment during initial stages. Therefore, as we gain knowledge analyzing the relationships between previously mentioned factors, it could be applied to develop valid screening methods along with strengthening current rehabilitation programs and designing adjuvant treatments to increase their effectiveness.

Alexithymia as a Predictor of Arousal and Affect Dysregulations when Batterers with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Cope with Acute Stress

“…Moreover, it is important to keep in mind that we included group and drug misuse as covariates in the statistical analyses, but alexithymia still predicted autonomic and emotional dysregulations, which reinforces alexithymia's importance in this population. Therefore, this result highlights that we need to pay attention to alexithymia when designing future batterer intervention programs [33,34].…”

“…Second, we explored whether alexithymia traits would explain differential patterns of response (SCL and psychological states) in all the participants. Based on previous conclusions in this field of research [33,34], we would expect higher alexithymia traits to explain autonomic (hypoarousal or hyperarousal) and psychological dysregulations (high anger and worse mood) in coping with stress. Moreover, we hypothesize that these associations will be especially significant in IPVAW perpetrators with ADHD.…”

“…Regarding psychological changes, previous studies reported a differential psychological state stress response in IPVAW perpetrators, characterized by a higher state of anger and worse mood levels before starting a laboratory stress task [35]. Therefore, IPVAW perpetrators with ADHD traits would present higher anger and worse moods than the rest of the participants, due to their serious difficulties in dealing with their inner states [28,29,[33][34][35]. Second, we explored whether alexithymia traits would explain differential patterns of response (SCL and psychological states) in all the participants.…”

“…Nonetheless, these studies did not pay attention to alexithymia traits and whether they play a role in explaining the differential autonomic response of IPVAW perpetrators to acute stress. We strongly believe that it would be important to consider these variables, because recent studies targeted the importance of considering alexithymia in designing intervention programs for IPVAW perpetrators [33,34].…”

Violence against women in heterosexual couples: A review of psychological and medico-legal considerations

“…IPV victims often exhibit alexithymic traits that could be linked to the traumatic experience of suffering violence. 88,89 A deeper understanding of the mechanisms and risk factors of violence may help forensic specialists uncover early signs of IPV in victims. Professional teams are required to evaluate all physical and psychological indicators of IPVAW to prevent abuse and protect victims.…”