The different manners of facing vicissitudes brought by the HIV infection are linked to the person's life history and the available psychological resources, revealing personality characteristics. Using Rorschach's Projective Technique, the affective processes of HIV carriers and patients with AIDS were investigated, in order to obtain a representative picture of their emotional resources for dealing with the infection. Twenty HIV carriers took part on the study, and they were divided as it follows: group 01 - 10 symptomatic serum-positive persons and group 02 - 10 asymptomatic serum-positive persons. The Rorschach's protocols were rated according to the patterns for the population of Ribeirão Preto. The main results indicated identity integrity menace, associated with fear of death and social isolation, contact anguish and the emotional experiences of patients with AIDS showed more rigid and retrieved characteristics than the asymptomatic serum-positive patients' ones.
AIDS; personality aspects; coping
