Correlation between clinical psychiatric symptoms and contents of answers to Thematic Apperception Test among elder population with and without clinical diagnosis

Most people believe that mental disorders are rare and happen to someone else. In fact, mental disorders are common and widespread. An estimated 54 million Americans suffer from some form of mental disorder in a given year. These show how defense use changes after a period of psychotherapy, and how defenses change with ageMethod In order to collecting data we used accidental selective method of sampling, we selected 25 people referred to psychiatric clinic for elderly patients and moreover selected 25 healthy people referred to social centers in Tehran with age of 45 up to 65 years old. In order to assessing research variables we used SCL-25 and TAT for elderly people (CAT). Both of them were suitable for clinical and research goals. In order to analysis data we used SPSS-22 and correlation formula.Results The results show that there were some significant correlation between some types of projective answers and some of psychiatric symptoms, there were significant correlation between economic answers and somatizations, negative correlation between answers with content of social functions and Obsessive compulsive disorder, answers with content of loneliness and somatization, answers of gloominess and social difficulties, answers of gloominess and anxiety.Discussion There are some significant correlation between answers to pictures of projective personality assessment test that can predict clinical psychiatric disorder among aged people in present time or near future time.

Keywords:

TAT , CAT , mental disorder , psychiatric disorder , psychological difficulties