CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 80Psychosomatic Disorders and Their TreatmentsPsychoanalysis and Psychopathology ResearchAttachment and Relationship Dynamics

Mentalizing language development in a longitudinal attachment sample: implications for alexithymia

Open access
Lemche, Erwin, Klann-Delius, Gisela, Koch, Rainer, Joraschky, Peter·2004·Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics
DOI 10.1159/000080390
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Background: The construct of alexithymia implies a deficit in symbolization for emotional, somatic, and mental states. However, the etiologic factors for alexithymia have not yet been fully elucidated. The present study investigated the use of mentalizing language, i.e. the utterance of internal states, from a developmental perspective according to attachment organization and disorganization. Methods: A longitudinal design across 4 time points was applied to a volunteer sample of 42 children. At 12 months, children were tested with the strange situation procedure, the standard measure of attachment at the optimal age, and attachment classifications were taken of videotapes. At ages 17, 23, 30 and 36 months, mother and child were observed in simplified separation episodes of 30 min duration. Transcripts of the sessions were subject to coding of internal state words. Results: During the investigated span, securely attached children rapidly acquired emotion, physiology, cognition and emotion-regulatory language, whereas insecurely attached and disorganized children either completely lacked internal state language or displayed a considerable time lag in the use of emotion and cognition vocabulary. Conclusion: The results raise the possibility that alexithymia might be a consequence of deficits in the development of internal state language in the context of insecure or disorganized childhood attachment relationships.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1159/000080390

Cites

54 of 54 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

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?

  • Research into alexithymia indicates that developmental and acquired routes exist.

    “While research into alexithymia indicates that developmental and acquired routes exist (Henry et al., 2006; Hogeveen et al., 2016; Lemche et al., 2004; Wood and Williams, 2007), little research has focused on this explicitly in the domain of non-emotional interoception.”

    From Atypical interoception as a common risk factor for psychopathology: A review (2021) · cites this paper as Lemche et al., 2004

    The Introduction (page not supplied) proposes a developmental deficit as a possible origin of alexithymia, and the Discussion suggests it might emerge partly from attachment insecurity. The paper does not describe an acquired route, so it supports only one part of the attributed claim. (LLM, conf=0.87)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 5

  1. Fonagy P: The significance of the development of metacognitive control over mental represen- tations in parenting and infant development. J Clin Psychoanal 1996;5:67-86.
  2. Parker JD, Taylor GJ, Bagby RM: Alexithymia and the recognition of facial expression of emo- tion. Psychother Psychosom 1993;59:197- 202.
  3. Parker JDA, Bauermann TM, Smith CT: Alex- ithymia and impoverished dream content: Evi- dence from rapid eye movement sleep awaken- ings. Psychosom Med 1999;62:486-491.
  4. Sabbagh MA, Callanan MA: Metarepresenta- tion in action: 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds' develop- ing theory of mind in parent-child conversa- tions. Dev Psychol 1998;34:491-502.
  5. Bortz J, Lienert GA, Boehnke K: Distribution- Free Methods in Biostatistics. Berlin, Springer, 1990.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Lemche, E., Klann-Delius, G., Koch, R., & Joraschky, P.
Affiliations
  • King's College London (GB)
  • Freie Universität Berlin (DE)
  • Technische Universität Dresden (DE)
ORCID
Venue
Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics
Publisher
S. Karger AG
Published
2004
Volume
73
Issue
6
Pages
366-374
ISSN
  • 0033-3190 (ISSN-L)
  • 1423-0348
DOI
10.1159/000080390
OpenAlex
W2037456907
Cited by
80
References
54
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 7 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 4
FWCI
1.84
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Qucosa (Saxon State and University Library Dresden) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychoanalysis and Psychopathology Research
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Attachment and Relationship Dynamics
Keywords
alexithymia, internal state language, attachment organization, disorganized attachment, insecure attachment, emotional words, emotion regulation, child development, attachment classification, maternal separation
MeSH terms
Affective Symptoms, Child, Preschool, Cognition, Emotions, Female, Humans, Infant, Language Development, Longitudinal Studies, Male, Reactive Attachment Disorder

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