An empirical study: self-criticism, rumination response style and alexithymia traits in young adults

Many psychological concepts have underlying constructs that need further exploration to navigate through unresolved concerns in psychotherapy. Researcher explores to what extent do rumination and alexithymia transform self-critical tendencies into self-sabotaging behavior. Researcher investigates associations between variables of self-criticism, ruminative response style and alexithymia using correlation coefficient. Further, series of regression analysis were employed to study the effect of self-criticism on rumination and alexithymia. The sample included, male and female participants between 18–25 years. Participant responses were collected on three scales, Forms of Self-Criticising/Attacking and Self-Reassuring Scale (FSCRS), Ruminative responses scale (RRS) and Perth alexithymia questionnaire (PAQ). Findings indicate that inadequate self positively correlates with brooding and depressed; hated-self correlated with brooding, depressed and difficulty identifying emotions. Brooding and difficulty identifying emotions predicts self-destructive behaviour. Ruminative tendencies can be reformed by strengthening self-psychotherapy work. Thus, the implications of the study may indicate psychotherapy interventions may need modified approaches to work with self-criticism tendencies with clients.