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Post Traumatic Stress Disorder / Stress Disorders, Post Traumatic · Journal article
European Journal of Psychotraumatology · July 24, 2026
Early or partial results. Treat as a signal, not a conclusion.
This cross-sectional study identified differential linguistic patterns in projective test responses between individuals with PTSD (n=183) and controls (n=100), with four indicators showing group differences after Bonferroni correction. However, a sensitivity analysis revealed that only two markers (Rorschach Negative Emotion and SCT Insight) replicated under more conservative lexicon settings, and the authors explicitly characterize these findings as preliminary pending external validation.
Cross-sectional observational study with natural language processing analysis. Individuals with PTSD and non-PTSD controls; specific eligibility criteria, recruitment setting, and demographic details not fully provided in the text excerpt.. Intervention: Natural language processing analysis of responses to three projective personality tests: Rorschach, Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), and Sentence Completion Test (SCT). Compared with: Non-PTSD control group. n = 283. Seoul, Republic of Korea (based on institutional affiliations: Chung-Ang University and National Medical Center).
Four indicators showed significant group differences following Bonferroni correction (α = .0028): Rorschach Negative Emotion, SCT Positive Emotion, SCT Insight, and TAT Negative Emotion (ηp² = .036–.092) In the PTSD group, TAT Negative Emotion was the strongest cross-symptom predictor of PTSD, depressive, and anxiety severity Reduced Rorschach Body-related language and elevated SCT Insight were associated with greater symptom burden in PTSD group
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These findings suggest projective test linguistic analysis may supplement trauma assessment, but practitioners should treat this as exploratory research not yet ready for clinical implementation. The substantial replication failures under sensitivity testing and acknowledged demographic imbalances require caution in interpretation.
Single-center cross-sectional study using surrogate linguistic markers in projective tests with acknowledged demographic imbalances, partial replication failure under sensitivity analysis, and authors' explicit recommendation for external validation before clinical application.
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These findings suggest projective test linguistic analysis may supplement trauma assessment, but practitioners should treat this as exploratory research not yet ready for clinical implementation. The substantial replication failures under sensitivity testing and acknowledged demographic imbalances require caution in interpretation.
Graded across the dimensions that decide whether you should act, each from what the source actually supports. There is no single score, and where a dimension was not assessed it says so.
Background: While prior studies have examined linguistic markers of PTSD using everyday discourse or autobiographical narratives, comparative studies identifying specific markers across different projective personality tests remain limited.Objective: To investigate whether language features in projective personality tests differentiate individuals with PTSD from non-PTSD controls and assess their predictive value for symptom severity.Method: Verbatim transcripts from 283 participants (183 PTSD, 100 controls) across the Rorschach, TAT, and SCT were analysed using NLP across six categories: negative emotion, positive emotion, insight, causation, body-related, and self-focus. ANCOVAs with Bonferroni correction compared linguistic indicators between groups controlling for age and sex. Hierarchical regression analyses assessed predictive validity for symptom severity.Results: Following Bonferroni correction (α =.0028), four indicators showed significant group differences (ηp² =.036-.092): Rorschach Negative Emotion, SCT Positive Emotion, SCT Insight, and TAT Negative Emotion. In the PTSD group, TAT Negative Emotion was the strongest cross-symptom predictor of PTSD, depressive, and anxiety severity. Reduced Rorschach Body-related language and elevated SCT Insight were associated with greater symptom burden. TAT Positive Emotion negatively predicted symptom severity. In the non-PTSD group, SCT Self-Focus was the strongest predictor of PTSD-related severity, and SCT Positive Emotion negatively predicted anxiety. A sensitivity analysis revealed that SCT Positive Emotion and TAT Negative Emotion did not replicate under a more conservative Core Lexicon and should be treated as exploratory; only Rorschach Negative Emotion and SCT Insight were robust across lexicon configurations.Conclusions: Individuals meeting PTSD criteria showed reduced somatic language and elevated negative emotional expression, while self-referential processing and positive emotional expression emerged as salient markers in non-clinical individuals, though these differences should be interpreted cautiously given substantial demographic imbalances. These preliminary findings suggest that projective linguistic analysis may have potential as a supplementary approach in trauma-related research, pending external validation and replication in independent datasets.
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