Heterogeneity of Alexithymia Subgroups

Abstract: Alexithymia is a subclinical experience in which individuals struggle to identify, distinguish, and describe their own emotions. It is most commonly measured with the self-reported Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20). However, scholars hold different views on its structure, resulting in challenges in classifying individuals with alexithymia, which is detrimental to clinical diagnosis, counseling, and intervention. The present study aimed to investigate the types (or subgroups) of alexithymia within a sample of college students ( n = 707) from four Chinese universities. Two latent classes of three-factor two-class model solution were effectively identified by the Factor Mixture Model (FMM) approach: a “High-EOT alexithymia” class (18.2%) and a “Non-alexithymia” class (81.8%). The two subgroups exhibited similar performance in difficulty in identifying feelings (DIF) and difficulty in describing feelings (DDF), but they differed significantly in externally oriented thinking (EOT). This suggests that EOT might be a diagnostic criterion for alexithymia.