Describe me your feelings: body illusion related to alexithymia among adolescents

Abstract

Background: Having access to bodily signals, differentiating the self from the others and dealing with feelings is crucial in adolescence, where negative affect states could hamper the integration of bodily input into the self and might also affect the sense of body-ownership. Method: 54 healthy adolescents aged between 12 to 17 years old participated in this study. The SDQ and the SPS-J were used as brief behavioral screening instruments but also to assess emotional distress. Difficulties in identifying and describing feelings as well as externally oriented thinking were assessed by the TAS-20. The Rubber Hand Illusion was implemented for the assessment of body ownership. Results: No significant differences were detected between age, gender and alexithymia, in comparison to body ownership, where age seemed to play an important role. Further findings revealed the association between emotional distress and difficulties in identifying and describing feelings. Emotional distress and the SDQ did not seem to have an impact on the degree of body illusion. Lastly, a higher body illusion was found to be connected to more difficulties in describing feelings in the adolescence. Discussion: Our findings emphasize the close link between the ability to perceive one’s body based on proprioceptive signals and to verbalize own feelings. We suggest that in adolescents with higher malleability of body ownership, a vicious circle might occur which fosters a psychopathological state, where affect and integration of different exteroceptive signals regarding the body become more disentangled.