Citation

Yehuda R, Steiner A, Kahana B, Binder-Brynes K, Southwick SM, Zemelman S, Giller EL. J. Trauma. Stress 1997; 10(1): 93-100.

Affiliation

Psychiatry Department, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1997, International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

9018679

Abstract

Alexithymia was measured in non-treatment seeking, community-dwelling Holocaust survivors using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-Twenty Item Version (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 significantly 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 adds 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.

Language: en