Adult Attachment Behavior and Alexithymia in a Nonclinical Sample from Italy

The present research explored the relationship between adult attachment style and alexithymia in a non-clinical population of adults. The quality of attachment developed during the child's growth remains stable over time, and determines, even in adult relationships, various phenomena including the ability to regulate emotions. Alexithymia is a particular form of inability to recognize and regulate emotions that originates from childhood relational dysfunctions and persists into adulthood. As suggested in literature, an overall insecure style is consistently associated with higher levels of alexithymia, while the results are conflicting when it comes to associate a specific insecure pattern with alexithymia and its several dimensions. The purpose of the research was to study the relationship between different dysfunctional types of attachment and the level of alexithymia in a population of healthy adults. Participants compiled the Relationship Questionnaire (RQ) and the TAS-20 to assess adult attachment patterns and alexithymia characteristics, respectively. A group of 53 subjects (28 females) participated in the study. Consistent with the literature, results showed that the insecure style, as a general factor, predicts greater levels of alexithymia. The fearful and dismissing patterns appear predictors of high total scores on the TAS-20. Considering the TAS-20 subscales, a fearful style is predictive of greater difficulties in identifying and describing feelings, while dismissing style is associated with the concrete way of thinking of the TAS-20. No association was found between the preoccupied pattern and alexithymia and its three dimensions. Present results, while not implying a causal nature of the identified relationship, are overall promising and have confirmed the relevance of a significant association between attachment behavior and alexithymia. It would be interesting to investigate the association between adult attachment behavior and alexithymia using interview-rated instruments. Finally, the presence of differences between frightened and distancing, is an aspect that should be further investigated, as it could be significant in clinical practice.