Precursors of Premature Disease and Death: Rorschach and Figure-Drawing Factors

Participants in the Precursors Study affected with any of six disorders were compared with their matched, but healthy, control counterparts on 4 Rorschach and 10 Figure-drawing factors. Similar comparisons were made for the psychological (suicide, mental illness, and emotional disturbance) and somatic (essential hypertension, coronary occlusion, and malignant tumor) subsets of the affected participants and for those affected by each of the six individual disorders. The findings, though in themselves modest, provide evidence of the existence of psychological precursors of premature disease and death. The Rorschach human-movement factor was the main variable differentiating the total disordered group from the matched control group. This suggests that the affected subjects, as a group, had more active fantasy lives and might be considered to be more sensitive or vulnerable.