Preliminary study of the levels of emotional awareness in depressed patients and controls

Lane et al. have elaborated the levels of emotional awareness scale to asse ss the ability to describe one's own and others emotional experience. The s cores are based on an analysis of the participants' verbal responses to sho rt emotional stories, and refers to Lane and Schwart theory of the sequence s of differenciation and integration of emotional awareness. The concept of low levels of emotional awareness can be confronted to the concept of alex ithymia, both of them reflecting a deficit of affect regulation. The effici ency of the LEAS to account for the emotional impairments that can be clini cally observed in depressed patients was tested in a comparative study of t he levels of emotional awareness and alexithymia in depressed patients (n=1 5) matched with controls (n=15), who filled up the French versions of the L EAS and the TAS 20. The results suggest that the depressed patients have a deficit in affective functioning. The use of the questionnaires allowed to quantify this deficit and to determine the levels of emotional awareness of the depressed patients according to Lane and Schwartz cognitive-developmen tal model. Moreover, the ability to attribute emotions to others seems to b e particularly impaired in depressed patients.