Aleksitimi ve Psikolojik Belirtiler Arasındaki İlişkide Yaşantısal Kaçınma ve Duygu Düzenleme Güçlüklerinin Aracı Rolü

Abstract

In the study, it was aimed to investigate the mediating role of experiential avoidance and emotional regulation difficulties in the relationship between alexithymia and psychological symptoms. In this context, necessary ethical permissions were obtained and data were collected from 424 students who received undergraduate education at Hacettepe University. While collecting the data, firstly the written consent of the students was obtained with the Informed Consent Form.” Then, students who voluntarily agreed to participate in the study filled the scale sets consisting of the Demographic Information Form, the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-26, the Emotion Regulation Difficulties Scale and the Brief Symptom Inventory. Correlation analyzes were conducted to evaluate the relationships between the variables of alexithymia, experiential avoidance, emotion regulation difficulties and psychological symptoms, the relationships between the variables were found statistically significant. When the variables of alexithymia, experiential avoidance, emotion difficulties and psychological symptoms were evaluated in terms of gender variable, no statistically significant difference was found in terms of all main variables. However, in the Impulsivity subscale, which is the subscale of Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, and in the Somatization subscale of the Brief Symptom Inventory subscale, women scored significantly more. Serial Multiple Mediator Analyzes was performed to examine the mediating roles of experiential avoidance and emotion regulation difficulties in the relationship between alexithymia and psychological symptoms. When the results are examined, it is seen that the variables of experiential avoidance and emotional regulation difficulties play mediating role together in this relationship. When these mediating variables are analyzed one by one, it was seen that emotion regulation difficulties has mediating role, but experiential avoidance does not have a mediating role. For this reason, additional analyzes have been made and, as in the literature, it has been observed that, for somatization and depression subscales, experiential avoidance plays a mediating role. All findings of the study were discussed in the light of the literature. The results, limitations and clinical implications of the study were explained and suggestions for new studies were given.