Nutrition Imagery in the Rorschach Materials of Food-Deprived, Obese Patients

Summary

Six patients, obese since childhood, were studied as in-patients in a hospital setting for eight months. Three of them were studied for an additional year. They were systematically reduced in body weight, and subsisted solely on a prescribed liquid formula. All 5s had an initial elevation of Rorschach food images prior to weight reduction. Weight reduction did not appreciably alter the number and kind of these images. This was true even when suggestion was used as a possible way of altering nutrition imagery. A need-readiness to project nutrition images on Rorschach may be a fundamental correlate of the state of obesity. A possible relation was suggested between negatively-toned food imagery and motivation for reduced body weight.