Group 1

Hermann Rorschach (November 8, 1884 - April 1, 1922)

Popular game

Eugen Bleuler coined the term 'Schizophrenia'

Rorschach used 40 inkblots out of which he regularly used 15 of

them with his patients

Publisher for his inkblots- The House of Bircher

Rorschach died in 1922

Some facts

Exner's scoring system

Contributors of Rorschach

Personality, Perceptual, and Problem

solving characteristics :

i. Thought organization

ii. Perceptual accuracy and conventionality

iii. Self-image and understanding of others

iv. Psychological resources and schemas

Performance based task

Contents :

1. Stimulus cards (10)

2. Response sheet

3. Location chart

4. Manual

Materials Required For Administration :

1. All the test contents

2. Stopwatch

3. Different colored pencils

4. Good seating arrangement

Among clinical psychologists in practice, the

Rorschach is typically the Third or Fourth

most commonly used assessment

instrument, following the WAIS and MMPI

(Camara, Nathan, & Puente, 2000; Watkins,

Campbell, Nieberding, & Hallmark,1995)

With respect to its research base, the Rorschach

has been the second most investigated

personality assessment instrument

(following the MMPI), with about 7,000

citations in the literature as of the mid-1990s

(Butcher & Rouse, 1996)

A complete system by Holtzman

A series by Behn-Eschenberg that was initially hoped to

parallel Rorschach’s blots

A short 3-card series by Zulliger,

An infrequently researched set of Somatic inkblots by

Roemer, which are a set of stimuli that were deliberately

created to elicit responses containing somatic content or

themes.

The development of the Rorschach CS included the compilation of

descriptive statistics for each of its codes and summary scores for a sample

of 600 nonpatient adults age 19 to 69 (Mean of 31.7)

The sample was stratified to include an equal number of males and females

and 120 persons from each of five geographic areas across the United

States (Northeast, South, Midwest, Southwest, and West)

Additional reference data are available for 1,390 nonpatient young people,

ages 5 to 16, and for three groups of adult psychiatric patients: 328 first

admission inpatients with schizophrenia, 279 patients hospitalized for

depression, and 535 outpatients presenting a diversity of symptoms

A further source of concern about the current adequacy of the CS norms

emerged from a 12-country collaborative international study of Rorschach

structural data in nonpatient samples.

As reported by Erdberg and Shaffer (2001), these studies have demonstrated many striking cross-cultural similarities in patterns of Rorschach responses, but also some notable differences from the U.S. norms published by Exner.

Recent research has revealed that norms cannot be used from one country to another and differences within the same cultural group are also to be found.

Norms created by D’Netto and Dubey reported marked differences in the responses of the military personnel as compared to the normal civilians and also between themselves.

Most of these studies had a number of shortcomings.

Lack of standardized rules for administration and scoring.

Poor inter-rater reliability.

Lack of adequate norms.

Unknown or weak validity.

i. W

ii. D

iii. d

iv. S

v. Dd

vi. De

vii. dr

• H

• (H)

• Hd

• (Hd)

• A-I

• At

• Sex

• A

• (A)

• Ad

• (Ad)

Determinants

Main and Additional

Responses

F o r m R e s p o n

s e s

F

M o v e m en t

r e s p o n se s

M

FM

m (mF Fm)

S h a d i n g r e s p o n s

e s

c (Fc, cF)

K (FK, KF)

k (Fk, kF)

C o l o u rr e s p o n s

e s

Achromatic – C’ (FC’, C’F)

Chromatic – C (FC, CF)

Psychogram

Interpretation of M, FM, m

Interpretation of K, KF, FK

Interpretation of F

Interpretation of c, Fc, cF

Interpretation of Colour responses

Interpretation of C, FC, CF

Chromatic – AchromaticI. Achromatic + 2x chromaticII. Achromatic + ½ ChromaticIII. Achromatic < ½ Chromatic

F%, N%, D%, S%, dd%

No. of responses & Average response time

Popular responses

Sequence analysis

Content analysis

Evaluation

1.) Intellectual Level:

• Form Level Rating

• Quantity and Quality of M responses

• Quantity and Quality of W responses

• Variety of Responses

• Succession

2.) The Evaluation of control: The individual should have control over his impulses as well as overt expressions in order to protect from the dangers of reality situations and to successfully satisfy one’s needs:

Outer ControlInner controlConstrictive or Repressive Control

3.) Evaluation of Creative potential: Creativity in Rorschach indicates maturity and this creativity is based on two aspects which are as follows:

Imaginal ResourcesObject Relations

4.) The Introversive-Extroversive Relationship: It differs from commonly used words as introverts or extroverts.

An Introversive person has a well-developed imagination in terms of fantasy, impulses of long term goals. He tends to modify the environment in terms of his own personal needs and values. Either that person could have distorted reality or at the other hand he may be self-sufficient.

An Extroversive person responds more towards the environment. He easily gets stimulated. A passive extroversive take the things as they come to him without making any changes with reference to his needs.

The difference between introversive and extroversive is that introversive have personal developmental goals while the extroversive has goals related to the external world.

Rorschach is considered to be excellent at bypassing a person’s conscious resistance

The Rorschach’s purported high resistance to faking

Ease of administration. The cards can be easily handled, and the total administration time (including inquiry) is typically 50 minutes

Validity is often quite variable across different scoring categories and formulas.

Typically, multiple scores and formulas are derived from the Rorschach responses, some of which have relatively good validity and some of which are moderate, controversial, or even nonexistent.

Error can potentially be introduced from many different directions, like censorship by the subject, scoring errors, poor handling of the subtleties of interpretation, incorrect incorporation of the implications of age or education, or possible examiner bias

Previous lack of a single, standardized administration and scoring system. This is particularly important because numerous studies have clearly indicated that slight alterations in wording, rapport, and encouragement can significantly alter the numbers and types of responses.

In summary, the Rorschach is difficult to evaluate because of its complexity, its frequent controversy, and considerable variability related to the validity of its variables.