Incidence and implications of alexithymia in chronic pain patients.

Alexithymia is a clinical phenomenon that has been found to occur with some frequency in psychosomatic disorders. Its prevalence in psychosomatic patients suggests that it could be observed in chronic pain patients as well. The present study examines the incidence of alexithymia in chronic pain patients as assessed by the Archetypal Test with Nine Elements (AT9).

Empirical journey into the measurement of symbolic function as a dimension of alexithymia.

This paper traces the author's empirical research journey into the measurement of symbolic function as a dimension of alexithymia. The archetypal test with 9 elements (AT9) is proposed as a tool to discrimnate between forms and degrees of disorganization in symbolic behavior of alexithymic subjects. The results seem to indicate that the AT9 test is able to differentiate a primary from a secondary alexithymic subject.

The SAT9: a quantitative scoring system for the AT9 test as a measure of symbolic function central to alexithymic presentation.

This paper reports the result of preliminary efforts to devise a more objective and quantifiable system with which to score the AT9 test. The AT9 traces symbolic function, a trait central to an alexithymic presentation, and until now has been available only to those clinicians who have the prior knowledge necessary to projectively interpret it. Based on a sample of 42 patients, the inter-rater reliability on the new scale (SAT9) reaches highly acceptable levels of significance as does the correlation between the SAT9 and the ranked projectively interpreted protocols (RPAT9).

The measure of symbolic function in alexithymic pain patients.

The archetypal test with 9 elements (AT9), a tracer of symbolic function, was completed by 30 pain patients in whom alexithymia had been measured by two means: the Beth Israel psychosomatic questionnaire (BIQ) and the Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory (MMPI) alexithymia scale. Results show a correlation of adequate statistical significance (p less than 0.05) between the AT9 and the BIQ but not with the MMPI alexithymia scale.