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.
Since its creation more than eighty years ago, the famous Rorschach inkblot test has become an icon of clinical psychology and popular culture. Administered over one million times world-wide each year, the Rorschach is used to assess personality and mental illness across a wide range of circumstances: child custody disputes, educational placement decisions, employment and termination proceedings, parole determinations, and even investigations of child abuse allegations. The test's enormous power shapes the lives of hundreds of thousands of people -- often without their knowledge. In the 1970s, this notoriously subjective test was supposedly systematized and improved. But is the Rorschach more than a modern variant on tea leaf reading? What's Wrong With the Rorschach? challenges the validity and utility of the Rorschach and explains why psychologists continue to judge people by their reactions to ink blots, in spite of a half century of largely negative scientific evidence. What's Wrong With the Rorschach? offers a provocative critique of one of the most widely applied and influential - and still intensely controversial - psychological tests in the world today. Surveying more than fifty years of clinical and scholarly research, the authors provide compelling scientific evidence that the Rorschach has relatively little value for diagnosing mental illness, assessing personality, predicting behavior, or uncovering sexual abuse or other trauma. In this highly engaging, novelistic account of the Rorschach's origins and history, the authors detail the wealth of scientific evidence that the test is of questionable utility for real-world decision making. What's Wrong With the Rorschach? presents a powerfully reasoned case against using the test in the courtroom or consulting room - and reveals the strong psychological, economic, and political forces that continue to support the Rorschach despite the research that has exposed its shortcomings and dangers. James M. Wood (El Paso, TX) is Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, at the University of Texas at El Paso. M. Teresa Nezworski (Dallas, TX) is Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Dallas. Scott O. Lilienfeld (Atlanta, GA) is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Emory University in Atlanta. Howard N. Garb (Pittsburgh, PA) is on the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh and the author of Studying the Clinician: Judgement Research and Psychological Assessment.
For over 90 years, inkblots have been used all over the world by psychologists when evaluating their patients dreams and past experiences. This pack comes with 10 inkblots on beautiful keepsake cards and a small booklet that includes an excerpt from the inventor's only published works, Psychodiagnostik. Studying the cards, you can delve into your psyche and that of those around you. Record your findings in a beautifully designed journal that includes quotes about the mind and imagination. Each person sees the inkblots differently, and your interpretation says a lot about who you are. What do you see? Throughout history, on a quest to "know thyself," many have sought understanding of the vast recesses of the mind. To this end, modern psychology has tried to bridge the gap of understanding by providing many tools for both clinicians and laymen alike, utilizing therapy, art, journaling, and medicine. One of the most prevalent tools from clinical psychology to permeate popular culture is the inkblot test, which has been used all over the world to examine personality characteristics, emotional functioning, and mental health. Originally created in 1921, the test was designed to reflect unconscious aspects of one's personality onto presented stimuli – in this case, 10 inkblots shown one at a time to individuals – who are then asked to describe what it is they see in these ambiguous shapes. In theory, when one is shown nonsensical images, the mind will strive to impose meaning on the image in question. What the person describes gives insight into how they perceive and project meaning onto the world around them, and ultimately, about themselves. The fascination of inkblots has become a staple of pop culture as well. The iconic imagery can be found in everything from photography to advertising (such as the artwork for the hit series Dexter) and writing, such as the character in the graphic novel Watchmen. Art legend Andy Warhol found inspiration in the inkblots to create his 1984 paint series. As part of our collective culture, inkblots have created a tool that has inspired many to continue the journey of self knowledge. Included in The Inkblot Pack are: a 128 page journal replete with quotes on perception, reality and emotion from some of the greatest theorists, writers, and thinkers of our time; 10 inkblots to inspire and provoke response; and a 16-page excerpt from Psychodiagnostik, the book in which the inkblots were first introduced and published. Allow yourself to be inspired by the words of some of our greatest minds as you project your own meaning onto what you see in the provided inkblots, and record it in your journal. The journey to self discovery begins now. A Few of the quotes included in the Journal: "Re-examine all you have been told. Dismiss what insults your soul." - Walt Whitman "The soul that is within me no man can degrade." - Frederick Douglass "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - Albert Einstein "There are two infinities that confuse me: the one in my soul devours me; the one around me will crush me." - Gustave Flaubert "You are a universe of universes and your soul a source of songs." - Rubén Darío "Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways." - Sigmund Freud "Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world." - Oscar Wilde "Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night." - Edgar Allan Poe
Rorschach Assessment of Psychotic Phenomena takes the reader beyond where James H. Kleiger’s original work, Disordered Thinking and the Rorschach, left off. This new book offers readers a number of conceptual bridges between Rorschach characteristics commonly associated with psychotic phenomena and a range of psychological, neurocognitive, and psychoanalytic constructs that help psychologists move beyond static, test-bound interpretations of scores and indices. Beginning with a broad-based understanding of disordered thinking and reality testing, Kleiger provides an updated review of the contributions of past Rorschach luminaries and contemporary figures who have helped make the Rorschach a robust tool for assessing aspects of psychotic-level experience. The contributions of major figures are highlighted and assessed in terms of their empirical, conceptual, and practical implications. In addition to providing a balanced, respectful review of each of these leading figures and the systems they developed, Kleiger offers a new way of organizing and conceptualizing what is currently understood about Rorschach scoring variables pertaining to psychotic phenomena. Kleiger’s aim is to help Rorschach practitioners not only consolidate their grasp of key scoring variables and what each means about an individual’s thought processes and internal experiences, but also expand their clinical understanding of the psychotic phenomena being assessed. He includes a wide range of psychotic phenomena, like negative symptoms, cognitive impairment, magical thinking, and impairment of insight, all of which are subjects of diagnostic interest when using the Rorschach with psychotically prone individuals. The final section on psychopathology looks at how the Rorschach is useful in differential diagnosis of primary psychoses and those conditions that may include secondary psychotic phenomena. In step with contemporary DSM-5 standards, Kleiger organizes his discussion of severe psychopathology in a manner consistent with how psychotic phenomena are currently understood in the clinical and scientific literature. In addition to reviewing key clinical characteristics of these conditions, along with Rorschach contributions to the diagnosis of these disorders, he also focuses his lens on the Rorschach assessment of malingered psychosis and psychotic phenomena in children and adolescents. Written with the same well-researched attention to detail and integrative style as Kleiger's earlier work, Rorschach Assessment of Psychotic Phenomena will prove invaluable to clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychoanalysts interested in understanding and assessing psychosis.
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.
First authoritative and comprehensive study in the field of Inkblot Personality Test, this book describes the historical roots of the three major projective inkblot measures: the Rorschach, the Holtzman Inkblot Technique (HIT) and the Somatic Inkblot Series (SIS). It presents the extensive psychometric background work accompanying the normative data and diagnostic indicators along with indices for selecting executives in a business organization. The book begins with a detailed history of Hermann Rorschach and his early experiments with inkblots in the diagnosis of mentally ill patients. Special attention is given to the administration and scoring of the Rorschach, with the sections detailing the systems developed by Klopfer and Exner. The HIT and SIS are also reviewed in detail, emphasizing their psychometric qualities.
Sarah Boxer’s charming first book is a series of cartoon case histories, an animal tour of all things Freudian. The tale begins when Mr. Bunnyman runs into Dr. Floyd’s office to hide from a wolf that is chasing him, and Floyd, a classic pipe-smoking analyst, insists that Bunnyman’s problem is psychological—that he is not actually being chased but is having paranoid fantasies. Enter Dr. Floyd’s next patient, Mr. Wolfman, a swaggering cross-dresser with a hysterical female alter ego called Lambskin (who soon insists on being treated by Floyd, too). Ratma’am rounds out the Floydian client list: she’s an obsessive-compulsive pack rat who likes giving orders and being spanked. Drawn with a whimsical hand and complete with notes about the Freudian sources to which these archives pay affectionate tribute, the adventures of these animals reveal both the unintended comedy of Freud’s case histories and their psychic depths.
In Disordered Thinking and the Rorschach, James Kleiger provides a thoroughly up-to-date text that covers the entire range of clinical and diagnostic issues associated with the phenomenon of disordered thinking as revealed on the Rorschach. Kleiger guides the reader through the history of psychiatric and psychoanalytic conceptualizations of the nature and significance of different kinds of disordered thinking and their relevance to understanding personality structure and differential diagnosis. He then moves on to thorough reviews of the respective contributions of David Rapaport, Robert Holt, Philip Holzman, and John Exner in conceptualizing and scoring disordered thinking on the Rorschach. These synopses are followed by an equally fascinating examination of less well known research conceptualizations, which, taken together, help clarify the basic interpretive conundrums besetting the major systems. Finally, having brought the reader to a full understanding of systematic exploration to date, Kleiger enters into a detailed analysis of the phenomenological and psychodynamic aspects of disordered thinking per se. Even experienced clinicians will find themselves challenged to reconceptualize such familiar categories as confabulatory or combinative thinking in a manner that leads not only to new diagnostic precision, but also to a richer understanding of the varieties of thought disturbances with their equally variable therapeutic and prognostic implications. With Disordered Thinking and the Rorschach, Kleiger has succeeded in summarizing a wealth of experience pertaining to the rigorous empirical detection and classification of disordered thinking. Equally impressive, he has taken full advantage of the Rorschach as an assessment instrument able to capture the richness of personality and thus capable of providing a unique clinical window into those crucially important differences in the quality of thought that patients may evince.
This unique notebook depicts Rorschach test cards on the cover,Each one depicting a different image from the Rorschach test.200 lined pages giving plenty of room for notes.Measuring 6"x9"The ideal small gift for the psychology enthusiast in your life.
"The purpose of this book is to acquaint all with the elements of human nature and enable them to read these elements in all men, women and children in all countries"--Preface.
