[Rorschach test and post-traumatic depressive syndromes]

After reviewing the literature on post-concussional syndrome in head injured patients and some studies which have contributed to objectify post-traumatic personality characteristics, the authors were particularly interested in studying depressive signs complained of by such patients without any psychopathological history. The analysis of a group of 47 head injured patients shows that one in two patients openly revealed such depressive tendencies. These patients, who were observed on average less than one year after the trauma, do not differ from the others, whether by age, sex, the severity of the head injury, the existence of a neurosurgical operation. However, they showed many symptoms which were different from those of the other patients in the group and different from those of the whole group. This "depressive" syndrome appears in a more specifically anxious form. The study of the Rorschach's test, on the other hand, does not show any change in the basic personality, especially inhibited in the two groups. For the patients who do not complain openly of depressive signs, the hypothesis of a masked depression was raised. This perspective is compared with the literature's data and allowed to point out several forms of post-traumatic depression.