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To determine the psychometric properties of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), an established self-report measure of alexithymia, for a substance user sample participating in a clinical trial of outpatient cognitive–behavioral therapies (N=230).

Confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses were used to determine the number and nature of the factors underlying the TAS-20 in a sample of substance users. Structural equation modeling was used to determine the predictive validity of the TAS-20.

A factor structure comparable, but not identical, with TAS-20 psychometric results with other populations was found; alpha coefficients were .88 for the feelings factor, .62 for the external thinking factor, and .87 for the total score. Although, on average, the substance users did not appear to have elevated alexithymia scores compared with the undergraduate students, alexithymia predicted …