The Rorschach Test and Its Clinical Application: With Special Reference to Problem Children and Epileptics

When, in 1921, Hermann Rorschach published, in the second, volume of "Arbeiten zur angewandten Psychiatrie" (Bircher, Berne), under the title of "Psychodiagnostik", the methods and. results of a diagnostical apperception experiment, consisting in the interpretation of casually created forms, it seemed that the ideal test, from the point of view of the clinical psychiatrist, had been devised. For Rorschach claimed., firstly, that his test was an accurate gauge of intelligence; that, secondly, it evaluated, the emotional life of the patient, giving an index to his affective lability and his tendencies to extratension or introversion; and, thirdly, that it threw lighit on the unconscious mechanisms in personality. Further, he announced that individuals could he classified into the various reaction types. He claimed that different reaction patterns were obtained for the different types of normals; for the affective disorders; for the different classes of schizophrenics; for the organic mental disorders; for mental deficiency and epilepsy. In short, he maintained that the test was a diagnostic instrument of surprising delicacy. Over the great majority of other psychological tests also, the Rorschach test maintains certain distinct advantages. Education plays but a small role, and only the highly intelligent normals form a contrast; while the same material is used for all grades of intelligence by which means the results are therefore comparable. The material is sufficiently unlike an intelligence test to free the subject from emotional inhibition, incident to the test situation itself, and so gives the clinician a more accurate picture of the equipment available for intellectual functioning in life generally. These are almost grandiose claims to make for one test, and it is the purpose of this paper to report on its application to the clinical field, and to estimate the truth of Rorschach's assertions. Further, it will be considered whether this test, in its present form, can become an instrument to be used, in the everyday practice of clinical psychiatry, as the Binet Test, or modifications of it, is used in psychometry. A brief outline of the history and technique of the test will also be given, but no attempt will be made, in so short a paper, to describe either fully; nor will the writer deal extensively with Rorschach's theoretical psychology. Sufficient data will merely be given to make understandable the nature of the test and its application