Rorschach

many, the word Rorschach is quite unknown and to others it is simply known as the inkblot test and even then, the real meaning of the Rorschach test is never acknowledged. The Rorschach inkblot test is a psychological projective test of personality in which a subject’s interpretation of ten standard abstract designs are analyzed as measure of emotional and intellectual functioning and combination. Also, like other projective techniques, “it is based on the principle that subjects viewing neutral, ambiguous stimuli will project their own personalities onto them, thereby revealing a variety of unconscious conflicts and motivations.” (Aronow; p 25)

This test, which is administered to both adolescents and adults, can also be used with children as young as three years old. The test provides information about a person’s thought process, perceptions, motivations and attitude toward his or her environment. It can also detect internal and external pressures and conflicts as well as illogical or psychotic thought patterns. There is a lot of confusion on the actual first creator and/or founder of this famous test.

The Rorschach was named after a Swiss psychiatrist named Hermann Rorschach. He was born in 1884 in Zurich and died in 1922 due to complications with appendicitis. He was the original developer of the inkblots, but he did not use them for personality analysis like they are used today. Throughout his lifetime, Hermann took a deep interest in psychoanalysis, and during the early 1900’s he published several psychoanalytic articles. It was just in 1911 that he had begun experimenting with the interpretation of ink blots as a mean of determining introversion and extroversion. Although some people would think he was the first to do so, Rorschach was not the first one to study ink blots; among his famous forerunners of the inkblots are Leonardo da Vinci and Jusinus Kerner.

In 1921 the first edition was actually published by Ernest Bircher. The test appeared under the name of a book called Psychodiagnostik, which had actually been first written by Hermann Rorschach in 1919 but he had problems finding a publisher so it was not well received when it first came out. Since 1927 Hans Huber has been the publisher of the Rorschach test and the related book Psychodiagnostics (English ...

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...ut turning the cards at odd angles or covering portions of the cards is considered as signs of brain damage.

In conclusion, even though the test was developed for purposes totally unrelated to accessing character structure and personality problems, psychologists today have found ways to use this test in order to help access personality and probe the unconscious mind. Also, despite all the controversy that is caused by this test regarding the results and if they are meaningless, there are still findings that even though throughout the decades it is used less, to this day it is still a number one choice to assess a personality.

WORKS CITED

Aronow, Edward. The Rorschach Perceptional Basis Content- Interpretation and Applications. Needham Heights, MA; Allyn and Bacon, p 24-40, 1994

James, W. Psychology; the briefer course. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985

Piotrowski, Z. A. The movement responses of Rorschach Psychology. (2nd edition) Rickers-Ovsiankina,M.,(Ed) New York; Krieger Publishing, p 189-228

Sullivan, H. The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry. Perry, H and Gawer, M (ed) New York: W.W. Norton and Co. p 79, 1953