CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 174Psychosomatic Disorders and Their TreatmentsCardiac Health and Mental HealthPsychotherapy Techniques and Applications

Exploring the benefits of group psychotherapy in reducing alexithymia in coronary heart disease patients: a preliminary study

Beresnevaite, Margarita·2000·Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics
DOI 10.1159/000012378
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Although there is preliminary evidence that alexithymia may influence the course of coronary heart disease (CHD), there are no studies exploring attempts to modify alexithymic characteristics in cardiac patients. METHOD: Twenty post-myocardial infarction (MI) patients (19 men and 1 woman) were placed in a treatment group, which received weekly group psychotherapy for 4 months. Seventeen post-MI patients (16 men and 1 woman) were placed in a comparison group which received two educational sessions over a period of 1 month. All subjects completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) before the start of group therapy, at the end of the 4-month period, and in follow-up assessment after 6-month, 1-year, and 2-year intervals. RESULTS: In the psychotherapy treatment group, there was a significant reduction in the mean TAS score following group therapy, which was maintained over the 2-year follow-up period. In the educational group, there were no significant changes in mean TAS scores between the initial testing and any of the follow-up intervals. On an individual basis, a decrease to a lower level of TAS scores occurred in a higher percentage of patients in the treatment group than in the educational group. Over the 2-year follow-up period, patients with decreased alexithymia following group therapy experienced fewer cardiac events (reinfarction, sudden cardiac death, or rehospitalization for rhythm disorder or severe angina) than patients whose alexithymia remained unchanged. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that group psychotherapy is able to decrease alexithymia and that for many patients this change can be maintained for at least 2 years. A reduction in the degree of alexithymia seems to influence favorably the clinical course of CHD.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1159/000012378

Cites

22 of 22 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Group therapy sessions seem to reduce self-reported alexithymia in a range of clinical groups, such as those with heart disease, bulimia nervosa, and panic disorder.

    “Attempts have been made to reduce alexithymia through therapeutic intervention, with group therapy sessions seeming to reduce self-reported alexithymia in a range of clinical groups, such as those with heart disease (Beresnevaite, 2000) and bulimia nervosa (de Groot et al., 1995), and panic disorder (Michael Rufer et al., 2010).”

    From Atypical interoception as a common risk factor for psychopathology: A review (2021) · cites this paper as Beresnevaite, 2000

  • Beresnevaite (2000) found that an intervention offering 4 months of weekly comprehensive group therapy with emotion recognition skills training significantly reduced alexithymia in post-myocardial infarction patients compared to a control group receiving two group-based psychoeducation sessions (d = 1.03).

    “Beresnevaite (2000) found an intervention that offered 4-months of weekly comprehensive group therapy, in which the training of skills such as identifying and recognizing emotions played an important role, to significantly reduce alexithymia in post-myocardial infarction patients when compared to a control group receiving two group-based psychoeducation sessions (d = 1.03).”

    From Smartphone-Based Emotion Recognition Skills Training for Alexithymia—A Randomized Controlled Pilot Study (2019) · cites this paper as Beresnevaite (2000)

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Beresnevaite, M.
Venue
Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics
Publisher
S. Karger AG
Published
2000
Volume
69
Issue
3
Pages
117-122
ISSN
  • 0033-3190 (ISSN-L)
  • 1423-0348
DOI
10.1159/000012378
OpenAlex
W2024894328
Cited by
173
References
22
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 8
FWCI
2.59
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
Locations
  • Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine › Cardiac Health and Mental Health
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications
Keywords
group therapy, alexithymia, coronary artery disease, myocardial infarction, Toronto Alexithymia Scale, cardiac events, reinfarction, sudden cardiac death, hospital readmission, cardiac rehabilitation, long-term follow-up
MeSH terms
Affective Symptoms, Combined Modality Therapy, Coronary Disease, Female, Follow-Up Studies, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Myocardial Infarction, Patient Care Team, Psychotherapy, Group

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review