Abstract
The chapter discusses the theoretical assumptions that responses to the Rorschach inkblots (a) reflect how people deal with decision-making and problem-solving tasks and (b) reveal underlying thoughts and feelings that are projected onto the external stimulus (the inkblot). In this regard, the discussion explores four psychodynamic perspectives for interpreting Rorschach responses of adolescents. These include ego psychology, object relations theory, self psychology and relational psychoanalysis.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Aron, L. (1992). Interpretation as expression of the analyst’s subjectivity. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 2, 475–507.
Aron, L. (1996). A meeting of minds: Mutuality in psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge.
Asari, T., Koniski, S., Jimura, K., Chikazoe, J., Nakamura, N., & Miyashita, Y. (2010). Amygdalar modulation of frontotemporal connectivity during the inkblot test. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 2, 103–110.
Baudry, F. D. (1995). Character. In B. E. Moore & B. D. Fine (Eds.), Psychoanalysis: The major concepts (Ch. 16) (pp. 196–208). New Haven: Yale University Press.
Berman, E. (1997). Relational Psychoanalysis: A historical background. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 51(2), 185–203.
Blatt, S. J. (1990). The Rorschach: A test of perception or an evaluation of representation. Journal of Personality Assessment, 55(3), 396–416.
Blatt, S. J. (1991). A cognitive morphology of psychopathology. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 179, 449–458.
Blatt, S. J., Auerbach, J. S., & Levy, K. N. (1997). Mental representations in personality development, psychopathology, and the therapeutic process. Review of General Psychology, 1, 351–374.
Blatt, S. J., Ford, R. Q., Berman, W., Cook, B., & Meyer, R. (1988). The assessment of change during the intensive treatment of borderline and schizophrenic young adults. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 5, 127–158.
Bram, A. D. (2010). The relevance of the Rorschach and patient–examiner relationship in treatment planning and outcome assessment. Journal of Personality Assessment, 92, 91–115.
Bucci, W. (1985). Dual coding: A cognitive model for psychoanalysis research. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 33, 571–608.
Exner, J. E. (1974). The Rorschach: A comprehensive system (Vol. 1). New York, NY: Wiley.
Exner, J. E. (2003). The Rorschach: A comprehensive system (Basic foundations and principles of interpretation 4th ed., Vol. 1). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Exner, J. E., & Erdberg, P. (2005). The Rorschach: A comprehensive System (Interpretation 3rd ed., Vol. 2). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Exner, J. E., & Weiner, I. B. (1995). The Rorschach: A comprehensive system (Assessment of children and adolescents 2nd ed., Vol. 3). New York: Wiley.
Fonagy, P., & Target, M. (1996). Playing with reality: Theory of mind and the normal development of psychic reality. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 77, 217–233.
Gill, M. M. (1995). Classical and relational psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 12, 89–107.
Giromini, L., Porcelli, P., Viglione, D. J., Parolin, L., & Pineda, J. A. (2010). The feeling of movement: EEG evidence for mirroring activity during the observations of static, ambiguous stimuli in the Rorschach cards. Biological Psychology, 85, 233–241.
Greenberg, J. R., & Mitchell, S. A. (1983). Object relations in psychoanalysis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Greenspan, S., & Shanker, S. (2007). The developmental pathways leading to pattern recognition, joint attention, language, and cognition. New Ideas in Psychology, 25, 128–142.
Handler, L. (1999). Assessment of playfulness: Hermann Rorschach meets D. W. Winnicott. Journal of Personality Assessment, 72, 208–217.
Hartmann, H. (1939). Psychoanalysis and the concept of health. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 20, 308–321.
Huprich, S. K., & Greenberg, R. P. (2003). Advances in the assessment of object relations. Clinical Psychology Review, 23, 665–698.
Jimura, K., Konishi, S., Asari, T., & Miyashita, Y. (2009). Involvement of medial Prefrontal cortex in emotion during feedback presentation. NeuroReport, 20, 886–890.
Kernberg, O. (1976). Object relations theory and clinical psychoanalysis. NY: Aronson Press.
Kleiger, J. H. (1992). A conceptual critique of the EA:es Comparison in the Rorschach Comprehensive System. Journal of Personality Assessment, 4, 288–296.
Klein, M. (1930). The importance of symbol formation in the development of the ego. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 11, 24–39.
Kohut, H. (1971). The analysis of the self. New York, NY: International University Press.
Kohut, H., & Elson, M. (1987). The Kohut seminars on self psychology and psychotherapy with adolescents and young adults. New York, NY: Norton.
Kris, E. (1934). Psychoanalytic explorations in art. New York, NY: International Universities Press.
Leichtman, M. (1996). The nature of the Rorschach task. Journal of Personality Assessment, 67, 478–493.
Lerner, P. M. (1998). Psychoanalytic perspectives on the Rorschach. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press.
McWilliams, N. (1994). Psychoanalytic diagnosis: Understanding personality structure in the clinical process. New York: Guilford Press.
Mihura, J. L., Meyer, G. J., Dumitrascu, N., & Bombel, G. (2013). The validity of individual Rorschach variables: Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of the comprehensive system. Psychological Bulletin, 139, 548–605.
Mitchell, S. (1988). The intrapsychic and the interpersonal: Different theories, different domains, or historical artifacts. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 8, 472–496.
Mitchell, S. (2000). Relationality from attachment to intersubjectivity. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press.
Mitchell, S. A., & Black, M. J. (1995). Freud and beyond: A history of modern psychoanalytic thought. New York: Basic Books.
Noam, G. G., & Malti, T. (2010). Ego development. In I. B. Weiner & W. E. Craighead (Eds.), Corsini’s encyclopedia of psychology (pp. 549–552). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Ogden, T. H. (1986). The matrix of the mind. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.
Ogden, T. H. (1989). Playing, dreaming, and interpreting experience: Comments on potential space. In M. Fromm & B. Smith (Eds.), The facilitating environment: Clinical applications of Winnicott’s theory (pp. 255–278). Madison, CT: International Universities Press.
Overton, C. G. (2000). A relational interpretation of the Rorschach color determinants. Journal of Personality Assessment, 75, 426–448.
PDM Task Force. (2006). Psychodynamic diagnostic manual. Silver Spring, MD:Alliance of Psychoanalytic Organizations.
Peebles-Kleiger, M. J. (2002). Elaboration of some sequence analysis strategies: Examples and guidelines for level of confidence. Journal of Personality Assessment, 79, 19–38.
Piaget, J. (1954). The origins of intelligence in children. New York: Norton.
Pine, F. (1988). The four psychologies of psychoanalysis and their place in clinical work. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 36, 571–596.
Rapaport, D. (1967). The theoretical implications of diagnostic testing procedures. In M. Gill (Ed.), Collected papers of David Rapaport (pp. 334–356). New York: Basic Books (Original work published 1954).
Rapaport, D., Gill, M., & Schafer, R. (1968). Diagnostic psychological testing (Rev. ed. edited by R. R. Holt). New York, NY: International Universities Press.
Rorschach, H. (1921/1942). Psychodiagnostics: A diagnostic test based on perception. Bern, Switzerland: Hans Huber (Original work published 1921).
Schachtel, E. G. (1967). Experiential qualities of the Rorschach Ink Blots. Journal of Projective Techniques and Personality Assessment, 31, 4–10.
Schachtel, E. G. (2001). Experiential foundations of Rorschach’s test. New York: Taylor & Francis.
Schafer, R. (1954). Psychoanalytic interpretation in Rorschach testing: Theory and application. New York: Grune & Stratton.
Schore, A. N. (2009). Relational trauma and the developing right brain: An interface of psychoanalytic self psychology and neuroscience. In W. J. Coburn & N. VanDerHeide (Eds.), Self and systems: Exploration in contemporary self psychology (pp. 189–203). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
Shapiro, D. (1956). Color response and perceptual passivity. Journal of Projective Techniques, 20, 52–69.
Silverstein, M. L. (1999). Self psychology and diagnostic assessment. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Silverstein, M. L. (2006). Disorders of the self: A personality-guided approach. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Smith, B. L. (1990). Potential space and the Rorschach: Application of object relations theory. Journal of Personality Assessment, 55, 756–767.
Stern, D. B. (1985). Some controversies regarding constuctivism and psychoanalysis. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 21, 201–208.
Stricker, G., & Healey, B. J. (1990). Projective assessment of object relations: A review of the empirical literature. Psychological Assessment, 2, 219–230.
Sugarman, A. (1991). Where’s the beef? Putting personality back into personality assessment. Journal of Personality Assessment, 56, 130–144.
Sullivan, H. S. (1953). The interpersonal theory of psychiatry. New York: Norton.
Tibon-Czopp, S. (2012). Applying psychodynamic developmental assessment to explore mental functioning. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 41, 1259–1266.
Tibon-Czopp, S., Appel, L., & Zeligman, R. (2015). Assessing personality patterns of functioning in a decision-making ambiguous task: The Rorschach Reality-Fantasy Scale (RFS-2). Group Decision and Negotiation, 1–11.
Urist, J. (1977). The Rorschach test and the assessment of object relations. Journal of Personality Assessment, 41, 3–9.
Viglione, D. J. (1990). Severe disturbance or trauma-induced adaptive reaction: A Rorschach child case study. Journal of Personality Assessment, 55, 280–295.
Viglione, D. J., Perry, W., & Meyer, G. J. (2003). Refinements in the Rorschach Ego Impairment Index incorporating the Human Representational Variable. Journal of Personality Assessment, 81, 149–156.
Weiner, I. B. (1986). Conceptual and empirical perspectives on the Rorschach assessment of psychopathology. Journal of Personality Assessment, 50, 472–479.
Weiner, I. B. (2003). Principles of Rorschach interpretation (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Weiner, I. B., & Greene, R. L. (2008). Handbook of personality assessment. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Westen, D. (1991). Social cognition and object relations. Psychological Bulletin, 109, 429–455.
Winnicott, D. W. (1971). Playing and reality. New York: Basic books.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Tibon-Czopp, S., Weiner, I.B. (2016). The Rorschach Inkblot Method: Theory. In: Rorschach Assessment of Adolescents. Advancing Responsible Adolescent Development. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3151-4_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3151-4_4
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-3150-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-3151-4
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)