title: Alexithymia in Karachi.
abstract: Alexithymia is a new term which usually means "no words for mood" and used to describe a disorder where patients have difficulty in expressing feelings in words. Such patients therefore express emotions in somatic terms. We have selected headache as a symptom to test the term Alexithymia. A group of thirty patients with the complaint of persistent headache of more than 6 months duration, without any organic pathology or neurological disease entity was taken. This study concludes that Alexithymic traits are not necessarily more prominent in those having psychophysiological symptoms specially tension headache. It also shows that we should not accept any new concept evolved in West without testing it in our own conditions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Karachi.
authors.forename: S H
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Ahmed
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Naeem
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Zainulabdin
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005260:Female; D006261:Headache / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010154:Pakistan / Q000453:epidemiology; D011602:Psychophysiologic Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D009626:Terminology as Topic