Facial emotion recognition and alexithymia in adults with somatoform disorders |
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| Authors: | Francisco Pedrosa Gil MD Nathan Ridout PhD Henrik Kessler MD Michaela Neuffer PhD Claudia Schoechlin PhD Harald C Traue PhD Marius Nickel MD |
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| Institution: | 1. Psychosomatic Out‐patient Clinic, Department of Medicine Innenstadt, Ludwig‐Maximilians‐University, Munich, Germany;2. Clinical and Cognitive Neurosciences, School of Life and Health Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham, UK;3. Clinic of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Medical Psychology, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany;4. Institute of Medical Psychology, Ludwig‐Maximilians‐University, Munich, Germany;5. Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychophysiology, Psychiatric and Psychotherapeutic Hospital, Ludwig‐Maximilians‐University, Munich, Germany;6. University Clinic for Psychosomatic and Psychotherapy, Medical University Graz, Bad Aussee, Austria;7. University Clinic for Psychiatry 1, Salzburg, Austria |
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| Abstract: | Objective: The primary aim of this study was to investigate facial emotion recognition in patients with somatoform disorders (SFD). Also of interest was the extent to which concurrent alexithymia contributed to any changes in emotion recognition accuracy. Methods: Twenty patients with SFD and twenty healthy, age, sex and education matched, controls were assessed with the Facially Expressed Emotion Labelling Test of facial emotion recognition and the 26‐item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS‐26). Results: Patients with SFD exhibited elevated alexithymia symptoms relative to healthy controls. Patients with SFD also recognized significantly fewer emotional expressions than did the healthy controls. However, the group difference in emotion recognition accuracy became nonsignificant once the influence of alexithymia was controlled for statistically. Conclusions: This suggests that the deficit in facial emotion recognition observed in the patients with SFD was most likely a consequence of concurrent alexithymia. Impaired facial emotion recognition observed in the patients with SFD could plausibly have a negative influence on these individuals' social functioning. Depression and Anxiety, 2009. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc. |
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| Keywords: | alexithymia emotion recognition somatoform disorders |
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