A latent variable analysis of coexisting emotional deficits in substance abusers: Alexithymia, hostility, and PTSD

The emotional disturbance of substance abusers is often described as an ina bility to identify and express feelings coupled with an excess vulnerabilit y to experience negative affect. However, there is only limited empirical s upport for this perspective. To validate this description, we first defined components of alexithymia, hostility, and posttraumatic stress disorder (P TSD) derived from established measures of each by conducting confirmatory f actor analyses based on a self-report data set from a clinical sample of 25 3 alcoholics and drug addicts. We then fashioned and tested overarching lat ent variables representing the three aspects of emotional dysfunction (i.e. , alexithymia, hostility, and PTSD) and finally tested the correlations amo ng these overarching variables. We found a strong association between a fac tor labeled Bottled-Up Emotions and another labeled Neurotic Hostility (r = .62) as well as an association between PTSD and Bottled-Up Emotions (r =.66 ). The structure, magnitude, and intercorrelation of the latent variables d id not depend on the type of psychoactive substance abused. These results s upport the view that features of alexithymia and hostility coexist in subst ance abusers and that this joint deficit is part of a broad disturbance acr oss multiple psychological domains including pathological response to traum atic stress (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd.