Alexithymia in holocaust survivors with and without PTSD

✍ Scribed by Rachel Yehuda; Ann Steiner; Boaz Kahana; Karen Binder-Brynes; Steven M. Southwick; Shelly Zemelman; Earl L. Giller

• Book ID: 102442317
• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 417 KB
• Volume: 10
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0894-9867
• DOI: 10.1002/jts.2490100108

✦ Synopsis

Alaithymia was measured in non-treatment seeking, community-dwelling Holocaust survivors using the Toronto Alerithymia Scale-Twenty Item krsion (TAS-20). Scores of survivors with (n = 30) and without (n = 26) posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were compared, and associations among alexithymia, severity of trauma, and severity of PTSD symptoms were determined. Survivors with PTSD had significant& higher scores on the TAS-20 compared to survivors without PTSD. TAS-20 scores were significantly associated with severity of PTSD symptoms, but not with severity of trauma.

This study ad& to our knowledge of the relationship between alexithymia and trauma by demonstrating that this characteristic is related to the presence of posttraumatic symptoms and not simply exposure to trauma.