This primer introduces readers to the fundamentals of the Rorschach inkblot test, including administration, scoring, and interpretation. The authors also present an innovative, streamlined scoring system--the Basic Rorschach--to enhance the test's clinical utility.
Few books illuminate a domain of clinical inquiry as superbly as Psychoanalytic Perspectives on the Rorschach. Paul Lerner has written a comprehensive text that offers a richly detailed, multidimensional vision of the Rorschach as the ideal medium for operationalizing, testing, and in some instances transforming contemporary clinical theory. For psychoanalytic therapists, the book provides a fascinating overview of how the coevolution of psychoanalytic theory and Rorschach technique has created new possibilities for conceptual integration. Lerner explores recent advances in our ability to operationalize such clinical concepts as splitting, dissociation, and false-self organization. He then reviews how these advances have been applied to research into psychic organization across different diagnostic categories, including anorexia and bulimia, aggressive and psychopathic personality, and schizotypal disorders. Finally, Lerner shows how the resulting data offer a unique vantage point from which to clarify such critical topics as developmental object relations and the structure of primitive experience. Rorschach scholars will appreciate Lerner's informed discussions of theorists as diverse as Rapaport and Schachtel, Exner and Mayman, Schafer and Leichtman. Rorschach students, for their part, will find the book an unusually lucid introduction to test administration, scoring, interpretation, and report writing. Even here, however, Lerner's breadth and originality are apparent, for his exposition of these testing fundamentals incorporates fresh discussions of the nature of the Rorschach test, the impact of the patient-examiner relationship, and the value of the test in treatment planning. Timely, definitive, and uniquely integrative, Psychoanalytic Perspectives on the Rorschach will be valued by students, clinicians, and researchers well into the next century.
This book gives graduate students and professionals a solid understanding of how to integrate the science and clinical art of Rorschach interpretation when working with patients.
SUNDAY TIMES 'BOOKS OF THE YEAR': 'the book develops into a bigger biography of the strange set of images [Rorschach] bequeathed, taking in everything from the origins of abstract art to the invention of the idea of empathy' – James McConnachie, Sunday Times IRISH INDEPENDENT 'BOOKS OF THE YEAR' The captivating, untold story of Hermann Rorschach and his famous inkblot test, which has shaped our view of human personality and become a fixture in popular culture. In 1917, working alone in a remote Swiss asylum, psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach devised an experiment to probe the human mind. He had come to believe that who we are is less a matter of what we say, as Freud thought, than what we see. Rorschach himself was a talented illustrator, and his test, a set of ten carefully designed inkblots, quickly made its way to America, where it took on a life of its own. Co-opted by the military after Pearl Harbor, Rorschach’s test was a fixture at the Nuremberg trials and in the jungles of Vietnam. It became an advertising staple, a cliché in Hollywood and journalism, and an inspiration to everyone from Andy Warhol to Jay-Z. The test was also taken by millions of defendants, job applicants, parents in custody battles and people suffering from mental illness – or simply trying to understand themselves better. And it is still used today. Damion Searls draws on untranslated letters and diaries, and a cache of previously unknown interviews with Rorschach’s family, friends and colleagues, to tell the unlikely story of the test’s creation, its controversial reinvention and its remarkable endurance. Elegant and original, The Inkblots shines a light on the twentieth century’s most visionary synthesis of art and science.
From codevelopers of the Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS), this essential casebook illustrates the utility of R-PAS for addressing a wide range of common referral questions with adults, children, and adolescents. Compelling case examples from respected experts cover clinical issues (such as assessing psychosis, personality disorders, and suicidality); forensic issues (such as insanity and violence risk assessments, child custody proceedings, and domestic violence); and use in neuropsychological, educational, and other settings. Each tightly edited chapter details R-PAS administration, coding, and interpretation. Designed to replace the widely used Comprehensive System developed by John Exner, R-PAS has a stronger empirical foundation, is accurately normed for international use, is easier to learn and use, and reduces ambiguities in administration and coding, among other improvements. Visit www.r-pas.org for more information or to purchase the R-PAS manual.
Personality Assessment provides an overview of the most popular self-report and performance-based personality assessment instruments. Designed with graduate-level clinical and counseling psychology programs in mind, the book serves as an instructional text for courses in objective or projective personality assessment. It provides coverage of eight of the most popular assessment instruments used in the United States—from authors key in creating, or developing the research base for these test instruments. The uniquely informed perspective of these leading researchers, as well as chapters on clinical interviewing, test feedback, and integrating test results into a comprehensive report, will offer students and clinicians a level of depth and complexity not available in other texts.
Written by three leading experts in Rorschach content analysis, this practical volume presents the Rorschach as it is frequently used by experienced psychologists. It covers both traditional and alternative approaches to interpretation, providing a thorough exposition of the perceptual and content roles of the Rorschach in assessment and treatment. The book breaks new ground in several ways. The authors have focused on creating a work that is clinically relevant and useful. To that end, perceptual scoring and tabulation have been simplified in order to make the presentation more understandable. Pathological verbalizations and content analysis are covered in depth. An extensive discussion shows how the Rorschach and other projective techniques can be used not only for assessment, but as tools in the psycho-therapeutic endeavor. Coverage of the Consensus Rorschach explains its use with more than one subject - a technique that is particularly useful in marriage and family counseling. Finally, the book includes extensive case material and verbatim protocols that show the reader how to use the methods of interpretation presented. The authors begin with a brief history and review of the current status of inkblot techniques, followed by a discussion of traditional administrative techniques and what is known about blot stimulus characteristics. Traditional scoring and interpretation are presented, including the simple content categories, tabulation, and traditional perceptual interpretation. The section ends with a brief summary on normative data and a chapter covering the scoring of pathological verbalizations. The second half of the book presents the "content-idiographic" approach toRorschach interpretation. The theoretical underpinnings of content interpretation in general and idiographic content interpretation in particular are introduced, and the weaknesses and problems in this approach are explored. This section includes detailed coverage of content sequence analysis and content-oriented methods of administration, with particular reference to the Content Rorschach Technique developed by the authors. The Consensus Rorschach Technique is also described, and there is a discussion (with case studies) of how clinicians can integrate the Rorschach and other projective techniques into their psychotherapeutic work. The book ends with three complete protocols, offering additional insight into both traditional and content techniques.