Adaptive and maladaptive rumination in alexithymia and their relation with depressive symptoms

Alexithymia and ruminative thinking style are two dispositions typically associated with depression. Alexithymia encompasses difficulties identifying feelings (DIF), difficulties describing feelings (DDF) and externally oriented thinking (EOT). Rumination consists of repetitive thinking about one’s own state, which has adaptive or maladaptive consequences, depending on the processing mode involved. This is maladaptive when the mode is abstract-analytic and adaptive when it is concrete-experiential (Watkins, 2008). In order to investigate the combined contribution of alexithymia and rumination in depression, the present study investigated correlations between the multiple dimensions of alexithymia and rumination before and after controlling for depressive symptoms. The aim was to see which alexithymia dimensions are associated with abstract-analytic rumination, which ones with concrete-experiential rumination, and which dimensions are not related to rumination at all. Self-report measures of depressive symptoms, alexithymia and rumination were administered to a non-clinical sample (N = 174, Mage = 21.40). After controlling for depression, two complementary patterns emerged, and a null association: DIF positively correlated with abstract-analytic rumination, EOT negatively correlated with concrete-experiential rumination, whereas no association was found between DDF and any rumination component. Causal models compatible with observed associations are discussed.