PSYCHOLOGICAL PRECURSORS OF DISORDERS - A THOUGHT-PROVOKING OBSERVATION

While still in medical school at The Johns Hopkins University, par tic ipants in the Precursors Study, a longitudinal study of the precursors of coronary artery disease and other disorders, were given the Rorsch ach test along with other psychological and physical tests. In the pre sent study, we looked at a cohort of 41 participants who, 8 to 24 year s after having finished medical school, could be classified into five disorder groups: coronary, hypertension, mental illness, suicide, or m alignant tumor. Using stepwise discriminant analysis, we found that pa rticipants' Rorschach test scores differed significantly among disorde r groups. Since the Rorschach scores considerably predated the appeara nce of the disorders, this finding implies that the Rorschach scores w ere predictive of the subsequent development of the various disorders. The Rorschach scores were especially good at predicting mental illnes s. If this finding is not spurious, it suggests that a given Rorschach profile mould be predictive long before mental illness became apparen t. Consequently, it offers the possibility that some intervention migh t be undertaken which could either result in mental illness not occurr ing or, at perhaps a minimum, lessen its severity. Since the Precursor s Study results discussed in this paper are some years old, it is like ly that another cohort of par ticipants have developed the various dis orders. Therefore, the authors recommend that the discriminant functio ns derived from this effort be validated with another cohort from that study who had not yet exhibited one of the five disorders when the cu rrent analysis was undertaken. Were that not possible, we would recomm end that this study simply be replicated with another cohort.