Özet:

There is sparse information available in the literature regarding attachment styles and theory of mind functions with somatoform pain disorder. Thus, the aim of the present study is to investigate the relation between somatoform pain disorder and attachment styles, theory of mind functions and alexithymia. Thirty consecutive somatoform pain disorder patients and age, education level and gender ratio matched 30 controls enrolled for the study. SCID-I Structured Clinical Therapy Patient Form, Adult Attachment Scale (AAS), Toronto Alexithymia Scala (TAS-20) Reading Mind from the Eyes Turkish Form (Eyes Test) procedures were applied to the somatoform pain disorder patients that are investigated. According to results; scores of somatoform pain disorder patients with regards to AAS avoidant subscale score, Difficulty Describing Feelings subscale, Difficulty Identifying Feeling subscale, Externally-Oriented Thinking subscale, total Alexithymia Scale scores have been found significantly higher than that of controls (p<0.05, p<0.001, p<0.001, p<0.001, p<0.001); Eyes Test scores, AAS close and depend subscale scores revealed significantly lower scores than that of control (p<0.001, p<0.05, p<0.05). Eyes Test scores are found to be significantly correlated with AAS avoidant subgroup scores and pain severity (p<0.05). Somatoform pain disorder patients revealed avoidant attachment and less secure and dependent characteristics more than the healthy controls. In this patients, avoidant attachment style is categorically more apparent. Their theory of mind functions have been affected significantly and this effect has been found to be correlated with avoidant attachment style and pain severity. These results indicate that developmental factors might be important in clinical manifestation of Somatoform pain disorder.

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