International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology Rorschach and Forensic Treatment Planning Use of the Rorschach in Forensic Settings for Treatment Planning and Monitoring

Abstract:Forensic psychiatric patients exhibit complex clinical issues that are neither readily understood by staff nor necessarily responsive to traditional psychotherapy or treatment milieu approaches. Individualized treatment planning identifies treatment needs and matches them to treatment services, thereby increasing the opportunity for a positive therapeutic out-come. The nature of the Rorschach, particularly that it bypasses volitional resources, enables observation and quantification of personality processes, making the Rorschach uniquely suited for treatment planning in forensic settings. In this article, the authors review relevant Rorschach literature, address the importance of incorporatingRorschach data into the assess-ment process, and discuss howRorschach data fit into a thorough assessment that includes his-torical, clinical, dispositional, and contextual information. The authors offer two case exam-ples to illustrate how Rorschach data are integrated in forensic treatment planning. An estimated 20 % to 40 % of persons with serious mental illness are arrested (Swanson et al., 2001), and although few are formally identified, a high propor-tion of those incarcerated are personality disordered (Davison, Leese, & Taylor, 2001). The forensic setting usually involves high structure and security, which ca