Kirsten Hutt, Katherine Tamminen

Alexithymia is defined as a difficulty identifying and describing one’s emotions (Bagby et al., 1994). Research shows that alexithymic individuals are more likely to engage in emotion regulation strategies used to conceal their emotions, like expressive suppression (Preece et al., 2023), and therefore may find it difficult to communicate negative emotions. Sport injury is a prevalent setback experienced by athletes, often associated with decreased psychological well-being (Mosewich et al., 2014). There exists no known research exploring how alexithymic athletes experience and discuss their emotions throughout injury rehabilitation. Therefore, the proposed study will aim to aid alexithymic athletes in storying their injury rehabilitation experiences using arts-based methods. 6 high performance athletes who have sustained a musculoskeletal injury, and are actively rehabilitating, will be purposefully recruited. Alexithymia scores will be measured using the Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire (Preece et al., 2018). Data collection will occur at three time points: an initial semi-structured interview, a body-mapping session (Skop, 2016), and a final semi-structured interview. Body mapping has been described as a meaningful, therapeutic, and positive artistic way to engage in research (Eke et al., 2025). Body mapping allows participants to reflect on their personal experiences through non-verbal expression (Eke et al., 2025; Skop, 2016). Data will be analyzed using narrative analysis with the purpose of exploring how alexithymic athletes tell the story of their injury rehabilitation (Smith & Sparkes, 2009). The proposed research will provide preliminary and novel insight into how alexithymic athletes experience and discuss their emotions throughout injury rehabilitation.