The document provides a brief overview of the history and administration of the Rorschach inkblot test. It discusses how the test was developed in 1921 by Hermann Rorschach and outlines the basic process of administering and scoring the test. Key aspects include recording verbatim responses, analyzing clusters of psychological features, and using a search order to interpret the full personality profile provided by the test. The document emphasizes that the full value of the Rorschach relies on considering all available data from the test.

1. The
Rorschach
A Very Short Introduction to the
History, Theory, Administration, and
Scoring.
Ron Hopkins

2. Poetic Prelude: Considerations for Art
• “To proceed beyond the limitations of a given
level of knowledge the researcher, as a rule,
has to break down methodological taboos
which condemn as ‘unscientific’ or ‘illogical’
the very methods or concepts which later on
prove to be basic for the next major progress.”
» Kurt Lewin

3. Poetic Prelude: Considerations for Art
• “The person who does not love to the same degree all things
present in the art of painting will not be a Universalist; It is the
same with the one who does not like landscapes and considers they
merit only a brief and simple study. As the master Boticelli stated,
such a study is useful because just by throwing a sponge soaked
with various colors against a wall to make a stain, one can find a
beautiful landscape. If it is true that in this stain various
inventions can be discerned, or rather what one wants to find in
it, such as battles, reefs, seas, clouds, forests and other similar
things, then surely, this is like the ringing of bells in which one can
understand whatever one wants to. But, even though these
smears of color provide you with inventions, they also show you
that they do not come to represent anything in particular. And
this painter produced very sad landscapes...............”
» Leonardo da Vinci, from “Treatise on Painting”

4. A Very Brief History of The Rorschach
Test
• Early Studies in “Ambiguous Designs” and
Assessments of Individual Personality
• Leonardo da Vinci
• Botticelli
• Justinus Kerner’s book of poetry (1857)
–Poems inspired by accidental inkblots.

5. A Very Brief History of The Rorschach
Test
• 1921: Publication of
“Psychodiagnostik”
– 174 page monograph (183 pages
English trans.)
• Rorschach studied 300 mental patients
and 100 control subjects.
• Rorschach died at age 37, seven months
after its publication. It received little
attention upon publication.
• The work was described as being a
“densely written piece couched in dry,
scientific terminology.”

6. A Very Brief History of The Rorschach
Test
• What’s in a Name?
• Rorschach’s View of his Work
– Rorschach’s Original Title
• “Method and Results of a Perceptual-Diagnostic
Experiment: Interpretation of Arbitrary Forms.”
• “I believe you are being modest…”
• “I have a sense of responsibility for the title…”

7. To Rorschach or Not To Rorschach
• When Should It Be Used?
– Information Collected
• “The Rorschach does not provide data from which answers
to all questions can be derived….” (Exner)
– Limitations
• “…complex specimen of behaviors…can be translated into a
series of descriptive statements concerning the individual.”
(Ibid.)
– Use
• Ordinarily used as part of a battery
• Part of a “multi-method” approach to assessment.
– Scope of the test is wide: “testing everything.”
– Overlapping tests allow the R. to possible provide “crossvalidation” with other tests.

8. To Rorschach or Not To Rorschach
• Who Should Use It?
– The Three Prerequisites (as proposed by Exner)
• Basic Understanding of People and the Notion of
Personality
• Good Working Knowledge of Psychopathology
and Maladjustment
• Understanding of the Test Itself

9. To Rorschach or Not To Rorschach
• The Interreleated Data Sets
– Verbiage
• Language and Responses Given to Examiner
– Sequence
• “As responses have occurred as reflected in both the
substance and the coding of them.”
– Structure
• “Plot of frequencies for nearly 100 variables from which
data for more than 60 variables, ratios, percentages
and indices are derived.”

10. What Might This Be
?

11. Administering The Rorschach
• Seating
–Seated next to client, never across from
each other.
• Introducing the Test
–“What do you know about this test?”
–“What we are looking for is…”
• “What Might This Be?”

12. Administering The Rorschach
• Time
– “Time should not be afforded undue weight when
administering the test.”
• Recording Responses
– Everything is recorded, verbatim.
– The Rorschach Shorthand
• E: “It cb a very pretty flower”
• S: “Yes, ths cb the stem & here r the petals.”

13. Scoring the Rorschach
• Clusters (Related to Several Psychological
Features)
– Affective Features
– Capacity for Control Stress Tolerance
– Cognitive Mediation
– Ideation
– Information Processing
– Interpersonal Perception
– Self-Perception
– Situation-Related Stress

14. Scoring the Rorschach
• Cluster Search Order
– Changes frequently, often depending upon variables:
• Key Variables
– Presence of a Key Variable predicts which
combination of two or three clusters will yield the
most significant information.
• Tertiary Variables
– Does not have predictive power. Highlights which
cluster will yield the most information but does not
predict which subsequent clusters will supplement.

15. “Reading” the Cards

16. Concluding Remarks
• “The full value of the Rorschach is realized only from the
complete sum of its parts. A neglect of any available
Rorschach data, whether quantitative or qualitative, is an
abuse of the test and a disservice to the client.” (Exner)
• “The most outstanding virtue of the Rorschach method is
generally recognized to lie in its power for providing an
integrated pattern of total personality, and for at once
articulating this pattern in specific quantitative ways into a
manifold of personality dimensions.” (Rickers-Ovisankina)