Emotional Trauma Drives Adolescent Alexithymia Through Gender-Specific Pathways

Childhood maltreatment is a well-established precursor to adult psychiatric conditions, with meta-analytic data showing that any form of maltreatment correlates with an increased risk of major depressive disorder (correlation coefficient [r] = 0.17, 95% CI = 0.15 to 0.18) and borderline personality disorder [1, 2, 3]. Beyond traditional diagnostic categories, early adversity frequently impairs social functioning and increases the risk of non-suicidal self-injury (intentional self-inflicted destruction of body tissue without suicidal intent), a behavior reported in 38.9% of university students [4, 5]. These developmental insults often manifest as chronic difficulties in emotion regulation, which serve as a transdiagnostic mechanism (a process that underlies and contributes to multiple different mental health conditions) for various negative outcomes [6]. A recent network analysis of 2,447 individuals has clarified these interactions by identifying that childhood emotional abuse and emotional neglect are central drivers of alexithymia, a clinical deficit characterized by a patient's inability to identify or describe their own emotions [7]. Specifically, emotional abuse shows a strong association with difficulty identifying feelings (r = 0.16), while emotional neglect is more closely linked to externally oriented thinking (r = 0.13), providing clinicians with specific markers to guide trauma-informed interventions [7].