New Contributions of the Rorschach Method on the Effects of Sexual Abuse in Childhood

Abstract

This study aimed to verify the effects of sexual abuse and maternal abandonment and to explore the utility of the Rorschach method to understand the victims’ interior life. The qualitative analysis focused on 12 protocols of children between six and eight years of age, including five girls and seven boys from Brazilian institutions. The presence of recursive responses of inanimate movement (m), morbid (MOR), aggressive (AG), sexual (Sx) contents and anatomy (An) was evidenced. The results suggest traumatic experiences with primary objects, hostile and aggressive human interactions, damaged self-perception and early abusive sexualization. The findings illustrate the harmful effects of sexual abuse and maternal abandonment in child development, and ratify the use of the Rorschach for evaluation processes in an ideographic approach, beyond the nomothetic perspective.