Building Emotional Self-Awareness Teletherapy (BEST): A Tool to Optimize Psychological Health Outcomes for Persons with Traumatic Brain Injury
Abstract
Alexithymia is an emotional processing deficit that is present in approximately 60 percent of the traumatic brain injury (TBI) population, including those with mild TBI (mTBI). Alexithymia is characterized by poor emotional self-awareness and difficulty labeling, differentiating, and expressing emotions. Emotional self-awareness is fundamental to processing and regulating emotions, which is why individuals with alexithymia have problems with emotion dysregulation and are often afflicted with affective symptoms and psychological health (PH) problems. Studies in participants with TBI show that alexithymia is associated with poor emotion regulation, anxiety, aggression, depression, avoidant coping, suicidal ideation, somatization, caregiver burnout, and poor relationship and life quality. One study found that individuals with mTBI and high alexithymia had more post-concussion symptoms and higher anxiety and depression scores than participants with low alexithymia. To address this prevalent problem in the TBI population, we created an eight-session intervention to treat alexithymia-related deficits (e.g. reduced emotional awareness. Objectives/ Hypothesis: Objectives of this study are to explore the feasibility and early efficacy of our alexithymia intervention when delivered via teletherapy and in a sample of participants with mTBI, including military service members(SM). This intervention entitled, Building Emotional Self-awareness Teletherapy (BEST), is expected to have good feasibility and acceptability in civilian and SM participants, and post-tests will show significant improvements in alexithymia, emotion regulation, resiliency, and affective symptoms.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2023
- Accession Number
- AD1219033
Entities
People
- Amanda Melton
- Dawn Neumann
Organizations
- Indiana University