Chronic daily headache: a Rorschach study

Abstract

The aim of this study was to describe the distinctive personality traits and their interest to the development of a chronic form of headache, by means of the Rorschach test, a projective approach, in an automated version compiled by a trained system (PRALP3). This study did not show the existence of a pathological structure in the chronic headache sufferer personality (in the psychiatric sense of the word). The most important finding is the admission that both neurosis associated with anxious-depressive elements and inhibited emotional overflowing are important factors in the genesis of chronic daily headache. This study does not exclude that other factors different from personality traits may also play a pathogenetic role in headache worsening. In other words, the development of chronic daily headache may be a patterned or learned response generated by the brain in relation to multiple inciting causes (stress, drug abuse) or individual predisposition (personality traits).