A Classifying Study: Alexithymic Symptoms and Attachment Patterns

The current study investigated the development of alexithymia concept, alexithymic symptoms and characteristics, and etiology of alexithymia in the light of psychoanalytic, cognitive, social learning, and attachment theories. The aim of this study was to examine the process of researches concerning with alexithymia and the probability of the incidence of alexithymia among healthy population. Second aim of the current research was to investigate the association between the development of attachment patterns and alexithymic features. For this purpose, the hypothesis of anxious and avoidant dimensions of insecure attachment styles prediction over the alexithymia scores was tested. Participants were 425 university students in Turkey. The hierarchical regression analysis results revealed that education level, anxious and avoidant dimensions of insecure attachment were important predictors of the alexithymia scores. The factors influencing the probability of incidence of alexithymia symptoms were examined by discriminant analysis. According to the results, insecure attachment styles increase significantly the incidence probability of alexithymic symptoms. The most significant variable in discrimination between the groups of alexithymic and non-alexithymic is anxious attachment style. Alexithymic symptoms appear to be common among also healthy individuals. Attachment theory seems to be important ground to explain the development of alexithymia. Although there was an important data for the prediction of alexithymia scores, other factors should also be investigated