The only method for obtaining objective information retrospectively is graphology.
The handwritings of 50 French or Czech patients with ulcerative colitis were studied. 28 of them were written before the onset of the symptoms.

The results were different in the late forms and the juvenile forms.
In the juvenile forms only, the psychic abnormalities were numerous, important and preceded the somatic ones, then confirming the psycho-somatic interpretation.
Later, these abnormalities did not become worse and partially improved: the somatisation appeased the guilt feeling.

- Besançon B, Besançon F, Setka J, Debray C:
Le psychisme et la somatisation dans la recto-colite hémorragique. Valeur rétrospective de la graphologie.
Sem Hôp 1972; 48 (53): 3531-3542