Emotional awareness and mentalization bias in children presenting somatic complaints
Somatization refers to physical symptoms that cannot be explained medically and affect about 20 % of children from the general population. Some concepts (e.g., alexithymia) and variables (e.g., anxiety) have been studied in order to identify the psychological factors related to somatization. This research aims to explore the contribution of affect awareness and mentalization biases to children’s somatic complaints. Questionnaires measuring somatic complaints, affect awareness, mentalizing bias, and internalizing and externalizing behaviours were administered to 112 children aged 8 to 12 and their parents. The results demonstrate that affect awareness, mentalization bias and anxiety significantly predict children’s somatic complaints. This research provides some insight about the variables related to the onset and maintenance of somatization in children.