Life Science Journal 2013;10(3) http://www.lifesciencesite.com 1272 The relationship between emotional awareness and empathetic response among psychiatric hospital staff Neama Mohamed Fouad Kamel Psychiatric Nursing and Mental Health department, Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University, Egypt neamafouad@yahoo.com Abstract: Research seems to indicate that Alexithymia construct (difficult to identify feeling, difficulty to describe feeling, and externally oriented thinking) is negatively related to relationship as well as an individual’s happiness and affectionate communication. The concept of Alexithymia itself does not explicitly include deficits in empathy. Alexithymia construct and empathy have been related but very little is known on shared variance between them. So this study aims to investigate the relationship between Alexithymia construct and emotional empathetic response among psychiatric hospital staff. The study conducted at El-Maamoura Hospital for Psychiatric Medicine in Alexandria. A convenient sample of fifty percent psychiatric hospital staff was included in this study. 20-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and Multi-dimensional scale of emotional empathy were used in this study to measure the relationship between the construct of Alexithymia and empathetic response among psychiatric hospital staff.The study found that there was a significant negative correlation between Alexithymia construct (difficult to identify feeling, Difficulty to describe feeling) and empathetic response among psychiatric hospital staff, despite the fact that the concept of Alexithymia was originally used to describe the characteristics of psychosomatic patients, this study revealed that Alexithymia construct can be used to refer to deficits in emotional functioning in normal populations [Neama Mohamed Fouad Kamel. The relationship between emotional awareness and empathetic response among psychiatric hospital staff. Life Sci J 2013;10(3):1272-1284] (ISSN: 1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite.com . 191 Keywords: Alexithymia; emotional empathy; interpersonal relationship; quality of care. 1. Introduction All human beings experience emotions. However, individuals differ in the way they are interested in their emotional life, and the extent to which they are able to differentiate between their feelings and their ability to describe them. The concept of alexithymia or emotional awareness has been proposed to account for this variability. (1) Alexithymia construct was found to be approximately 13% of the population, with men (17%) almost twice as likely to be affected as women (10%). (2) The therapeutic relationship directed toward enhancing the client's well-being and it depends on the interaction of thoughts, feelings, and actions of each person. In the literature empathy has become widely seen as an essential condition of effective nursing care and at the heart of a therapeutic staff/patient relationship. Alexithymia construct and empathy have been related but very little is known on shared variance between them (3) Most of the studies on Alexithymia was conduct on psychosomatic patient and little was done on normal population.This highlights the need for systematic and comprehensive investigation of staff' emotional awareness as one aspect of Alexithymia construct and its effect on empathy. Construct of Alexithymia The term ‘alexithymia was formulated by Nemiah and Sifneos during the early 1970s, the alexithymia construct encompasses the following salient features: (1) difficulty identifying and describing feelings, (2) difficulty distinguishing between feelings and the bodily sensations of emotional arousal, The first two factors (difficulties identifying feelings – DIF; difficulties describing feelings – DDF) refer to emotional awareness and expression and might therefore be considered as ‘‘affect-related” (3) constricted imaginal processes as evidenced by a paucity of fantasies, and (4) an externally oriented cognitive style, refers to a specific tendency to deal with superficial themes and to avoid affective thinking. It has been hypothesized that these characteristics reflect deficits in the mental representation of emotions and in the ability to regulate emotions through cognitive processes. (4-8) Alexithymia can be defined as a deficit in experiencing and processing emotions and was observed initially among patients with classic psychosomatic diseases. It has been found that alexithymic individuals are by no means completely unaware of their emotions, and even appear to possess adequate vocabulary for expressing their emotions but lack the ability to label or verbalize them properly. (9)