Alexithymia among students and professionals in function of disciplines

This study was aimed at investigating if students and professionals in helping relationships were less alexithymic than those in nonhelping relationships and if professionals were less alexithymic than students. The study was also aimed at examining if the pattern of results for alexithymia could be reproducible for psychological distress. The 270 individuals (undergraduates and professionals) completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (Bagby, Parker, & Taylor, 1994), the Psychiatric Symptom Index (Ilfeld, 1976), and a measure of social desirability (DS36; Tournois, Mesnil, & Kop, 2000). As hypothesized, results showed that alexithymia was higher among the nonhelping relationship group than among the helping relationship group and decreased as vocational maturity increased. Most importantly, the magnitude of change was similar for both groups. A distinct pattern of results was observed for psychological distress.