Teaching the Rorschach and Learning Psychodiagnostic Testing: A Commentary on Hilsenroth and Handler (1995)

A recent report by Hilsenroth and Handier (1995) surveyed graduate students impressions of their predoctoral-level training on the Rorschach method. My commentary underscores two central points from their article: (a) the problem of program specialization, in a crowded curriculum, and (b) students indication of a need for more secure grounding in personality theory and clinical diagnosis. The focus of these remarks concerns current trends in clinical psychology education, their implications for training in psychological assessment, establishing a reasonable upper limit of solid competence, for achieving a journeyman level of ability, and some considerations about a suitable role for continuing education workshops. A sharp distinction between filling in gaps in knowledge and compensating for fundamental deficiencies is emphasized in this context.     

Rorschach Productivity as Related to Verbal Reinforcement

The Rorschach was administered to four groups of 25 college Ss equated for verbal intelligence. A continuous reinforcement group, a human content reinforcement group, and an animal content reinforcement group were compared with a no reinforcement control group. Verbal reinforcement applied after each response significantly increased total R for Ss both aware and unaware of the response-reinforcement contingency. In the human and animal content reinforcement groups, verbal reinforcement led to increased human and animal responses respectively, but only for Ss aware of the reinforcement contingency. Implications for the projective test situation were discussed in terms of E bias and S conformity to experimental demands.     

The architect as person: a Rorschach image

Analysis of the Rorschachs of 40 eminent male architects collected in 1959 revealed a highly consistent personality profile. The picture that emerges is of a person who appears to be ambitious, highly sensitive, intellectually and emotionally energetic, and reasonably well adjusted socially. His thinking is well oriented in reality. He prefers large scale conceptualizing to mundane 'concerns. There is evidence of conflict, tension, and a concern with emotional control. Feminine and exhibitionistic interests are exceptionally high and sources of inspiration appear to reside in unresolved sexual conflicts. The attitude toward the world is positive. The eminent male American architect at the turn of the Sixties believed in his own ability to create a truly superior environment. His conscious concerns were with creation rather than with self-confrontation.     

Making Rorschach interpretation as good as it can be

This article delineates six guidelines for enhancing the quality and utility of interpretations derived from the Rorschach inkblot method. These include (a) using all of the available structural, thematic, and behavioral data in arriving at interpretations; (b) focusing interpretive statements primarily on personality processes and drawing clinical conclusions and recommendations secondarily on the basis of identified personality processes; (c) addressing interpretations to both personality strengths and personality weaknesses to attend equally to adaptive capacities and maladaptive tendencies; (d) formulating and conveying interpretations at appropriate levels of certainty to distinguish clearly between probable fact and possible conjecture; (e) pursuing and expressing both nomothetic and idiographic implications of interpretations to the fullest possible extent, recognizing that personality is best described by considering both how people resemble and how they differ from each other; and (f) grounding the implications of interpretations in each respondent's cultural context to take adequate account of the mediation of cultural relativism between personality characteristics and their adaptive consequences.     

Perceptual Consistency as Measured by the Rorschach

This article discusses the 5 previous articles (Fowler, this issue; Handler, this issue; King &; Pope, this issue; Potash, this issue; Strassle, McKee, &; Plant, this issue) in reference to creativity assessment, emphasizing the need to study children's play. There is a need for validity studies in the optimism paradigm described for the Thematic Apperception Test (Murray, 1938). I also question the wisdom of omitting hostile responses in the paradigm used to assess playfulness in the Rorschach.