Assessment of Alexithymia With the Rorschach Comprehensive System: The Rorschach Alexithymia Scale (RAS)

Abstract

In this study, we developed the Rorschach Alexithymia Scale (RAS) to be used with protocols scored with the Comprehensive System (CS; Exner, 1993). A total of 92 patients with medical disease and 127 psychiatric outpatients were administered the Rorschach and the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (Bagby, Parker, & Taylor, 1994a, 1994b). We used a systematic approach, including cross-validation, to reduce a pool of 27 CS codes issued from an earlier investigation (Porcelli & Meyer, 2002) to 3 variables: Form%, CDI, and Pop. The RAS showed excellent diagnostic accuracy (hit rate of 92%, sensitivity of 88%, specificity of 94%, and area under the curve of .96). We suggest that the RAS can be used as a reliable integrative tool in a multimethod assessment approach to measuring alexithymia.

Acknowledgment

Preliminary results were reported at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality Assessment, Arlington, Virginia, March 7 to 11, 2007.

Editor's Note: Mark Blais served as Editor for this manuscript.

Notes

^a Form% = F/R.

^b Imbalanced a:p = active movements as higher than three times as passive movements and vice versa.

¹In this as well in Porcelli and Meyer's (2002) studies, we used the percentage of pure Form responses (Form%) rather than the conventional Lambda index because Form% has been suggested as more suitable in research studies than Lambda because of a better distribution (Meyer, Viglione, & Exner, 2001).

∗ p <.05.

∗p <.01.

^a Form% = Pure F/R.