Alexithymia, psychopathology vulnerability and family dynamics in adolescence

Introduction Alexithymia is considered a risk factor across the whole psychopathology and it seems to be connected with several psychopathological problems in adolescence. Farther, recent studies are investigating the connection existing between alexithymia and interactive family pattern assuming a link between the quality of family relationships and the child emotional competence. Method This study aims to confirm the presence of alexithymia and its relationship with psychopathological problems comparing a group of psychiatric adolescents with a group of “healthy” adolescents. Secondly, the study highlights any relationship between psychopathology, alexithymia and interactive family pattern considering the sample of psychiatric adolescents. Experimental group is composed of 41 psychiatric adolescents and the control group of 41 matched by gender and age students. We used the TAS-20 to identify any alexithymic traits, the YSR 11-18 and the CBCL to detect any psycho-behavioral problems and the LTP to analyze interactive families pattern. Results From case control study it results a prevalence of alexithymia in adolescents with mental health problems versus control group and a correlation between internalizing problems and alexithymia’s scorings. From experimental group study, it results that adolescents with internalizing problems, somatic complains and attention difficulty belong to those families where there is a high level of parental conflict. Concerning alexithymia, the results show a significant correlation than the difficulty of identifying emotions in children and their mothers, confirming other literature’ data. Conclusions The study showed an association between psychopathological problems and high levels of alexithymia in agreement with the recent literature. The study confirms the hypothesis that the parenting difficulties have a role in children’s symptom expression and vice versa, endorsing the importance of combining work with adolescents with intervention on parenting.