Texture response patterns associated with sexual trauma of childhood and adult onset: developmental and recovered...

Reduce texture sensitivity on the Rorschach is proposed as a sequela of early sexual abuse that is unlikely to be contaminated by situational variables. If this conceptualization has merit, texture attributes offer a roadmap for studying vying claims in the recovered memory debate. To explore this possibility, we examined the extent to which intense preoccupation with sexual trauma of childhood and of adult onset was related to reduced texture productivity.

Texture productivity was measured in 4 groups comprised of 108 patients using the Rorschach. Twenty-seven patients with recovered memory were compared with 27 patients with continuous memory of childhood sexual trauma, 27 post trauma stress patients with sexual trauma of adult onset, and 27 non-abused patients.

The study replicated previous findings of reduced texture productivity among patients who always remembered sexual trauma of childhood-onset. The same texture deficiency pattern was observed among patients who recovered memory of childhood sexual abuse. This pattern was not observed in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) patients intensely preoccupied with sexual trauma of adult onset despite the fact that they mimicked the recovered memory group in respect to enduring preoccupation with distressing thoughts of sexual abuse.

The findings indicate that intrusive memories of sexual trauma do not shape patients' response to textural cues on the Rorschach. Variations in texture productivity are primarily moderated by age of trauma onset. Dismissal of claims of recovered memories on the basis of intense sexual preoccupation is not warranted.