Chronic pain patients with and without alexithymia have been compared, but no differences were observed as regards demographic variables or pain characteristics. More alexithymic patients had associated physical illness and this was significantly (P < 0.05) different from the control groups. Psychiatric diagnosis was ascribed to only three alexithymic pain patients. It is likely that verbal inexpressivity interferes with the emergence of psychopathology. Lower level of psychopathology could be due to the marked alexithymia in the pain patients of the study group.
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