Alexithymia in individuals maltreated as children and adolescents: a meta‐analysis

Background Children who are maltreated show deficits in emotion recognition, expression, and understanding. The goal of the current meta‐analysis was to determine the degree to which maltreatment is associated with deficits in the ability to recognize one’s own emotions – a phenomenon known as alexithymia. Alexithymia may be a mechanism explaining the association between childhood maltreatment and various psychological disorders. Methods This meta‐analytic review (88 studies, n = 43,076) examined the association between the experience of childhood maltreatment and alexithymia, mainly in adulthood. Additional meta‐analyses were run to examine if the strength of the association between maltreatment as a child and alexithymia varied as a function of the type of maltreatment individuals reported and other moderators. Results We found significant small effect sizes for all models, indicating higher levels of maltreatment in childhood or adolescence were associated with higher levels of alexithymia. Alexithymia was more strongly associated with forms of neglect than with physical or sexual abuse. The effect sizes also increased as the percentages of females in the sample increased. Conclusions Results suggest that researchers should examine whether alexithymia is a transdiagnostic mechanism in the association between childhood maltreatment and psychopathology and whether targeting alexithymia in treatment could reduce a wide range of symptoms.