title: Alexithymia and emotional regulation: A cluster analytical approach.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Alexithymia has been a familiar conception of psychosomatic phenomenon. The aim of this study was to investigate whether there were subtypes of alexithymia associating with different traits of emotional expression and regulation among a group of healthy college students.
  
  
  METHODS
  1788 healthy college students were administered with the Chinese version of the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and another set of questionnaires assessing emotion status and regulation. A hierarchical cluster analysis was conducted on the three factor scores of the TAS-20. The cluster solution was cross-validated by the corresponding emotional regulation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results indicated there were four subtypes of alexithymia, namely extrovert-high alexithymia (EHA), general-high alexithymia (GHA), introvert-high alexithymia (IHA) and non-alexithymia (NA). The GHA was characterized by general high scores on all three factors, the IHA was characterized by high scores on difficulty identifying feelings and difficulty describing feelings but low score on externally oriented cognitive style of thinking, the EHA was characterized by high score on externally oriented cognitive style of thinking but normal score on the others, and the NA got low score on all factors. The GHA and IHA were dominant by suppressive character of emotional regulation and expression with worse emotion status as compared to the EHA and NA.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The current findings suggest there were four subtypes of alexithymia characterized by different emotional regulation manifestations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Maternal and Child Health, School of Public Health, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, PR China.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Ting
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Jin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jing
authors.forename: Raymond C K
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Chan
mesh_terms: D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000145:classification* / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010551:Personality; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult