Risk, Resilience, and the Rorschach: A Longitudinal Study of Children Who Experienced Sexual Abuse

Abstract

Experiencing sexual abuse increases the risk that children will report or otherwise demonstrate problems with emotion, behavior, and health. This longitudinal study of 44 children who experienced sexual abuse examined whether information processing as assessed via the Rorschach Inkblot Test was associated with child-reported depression symptoms assessed via the Children's Depression Inventory (Kovacs, 1992) concurrently and an average of 15 months later. Children whose Rorschach protocols were relatively free of scores suggesting intense distress, complex processing, and sexual content were more likely to experience remission of depression symptoms at follow-up. Findings provide incremental validity for certain Rorschach indexes to inform prognosis regarding depression symptoms and perhaps their treatment.

Acknowledgments

This study was funded by a grant from the Richard J. Barber Fund for Interdisciplinary Legal Research. The authors also wish to thank Nancy Diehl and the staff of the Wayne County Child & Family Abuse Bureau. We thank Michael Behen, Mary Heaton, Lilly Jacobson, Kristin Kaylor Richardson, and Elizabeth Robbins for assistance with data collection, as well as Mary Heaton for assistance with Rorschach scoring. We are especially grateful to the children and their parents who gave their time and effort so generously. Portions of this paper were presented at a meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Tampa, Florida, April 2003.

Notes

The variables of Sexual Content and the Rorschach Distress Index merit special comment in this regard. If Sexual Content was also allowed into the regression equation it would account for unique variance over and above all others in predicting Time 2 depression (R² = .54; beta = .40; with betas for T1 Coping Deficit Index, Ethnicity, and Processing Index = .31, .26, and .31, respectively). In the case of the Rorschach Distress Index, although it did not account for unique variance beyond that provided by the Processing Index, it proved to be a significant predictor of Time 2 depression when the Processing Index was not included in the regression analyses.