The Rorschach inkblot test

What does this test, so often used by psychoanalysts, consist of?

Inkblots forming mysterious symmetrical figures.. These are the figures (or, rather, the non-figures) that are used in one of the best-known projective tests: the Rorschach test.

It is a method born in the first half of the twentieth century, when psychoanalysis dominated Europe, and whose use has become popular both in personnel selection processes and even in the clinical field. But... On what ideas is the Rorschach test based? How is it used? Is it effective and reliable?

To answer these questions we have to start by getting to know the person who invented the inkblot test: the Swiss psychoanalyst Hermann Rorschach. Hermann Rorschach.

Who was Hermann Rorschach?

Hermann Rorschach was born in Zurich in 1884, and since he was a child he showed a great fondness for creating figures through the use of painting. After graduating in medicine he began to specialize in psychiatry, and these studies made him enter fully into the world of psychoanalysis, which at that time was the psychological current that was becoming more popular in Europe.

In this way, Rorschach thus became very familiar with the concepts of free association and projectionwhich at that time were used by Sigmund Freud and his followers in clinical practice. Rorschach was the first to use the term "psychodiagnosis" to refer to the interpretation of symptoms to discover the mental disturbances that disturb people's well-being.

But what Rorschach understood as psychodiagnosis was far from resembling a medical evaluation based on the observation of objective properties. For him, diagnosis had to be based on the interpretation of the way in which the patient's unconscious manifests itself through the patient's creations. Specifically, Rorschach focused on the interpretation of artistic works created by patients to try to understand the functioning of their mind. to try to understand the workings of their mind. This idea was the seed that later gave way to the creation of the Rorschach test based on inkblots.

The Rorschach test

In 1921, Rorschach published a book called Psychodiagnosis. This monograph presented for the first time a psychological test based on the interpretation of ten cards showing symmetrical inkblots. The curious thing about these sheets was that the defining property of the figures that appeared in them was their total ambiguity..

The spots had no apparent meaning, and Rorschach had certainly taken great care to prevent his creations from being interpreted in any clear way.

The test of the spots he had created emphasized total freedom in attributing meaning to these figures.. It was a tool designed to be used in the diagnosis of psychological characteristics, but at the same time it avoided the possibility of measuring concrete and well-typed answers that would allow comparing the results obtained by different people.

Rorschach wanted everyone to be able to give the answer they wanted, and the range of possible answers was infinite, unlike what happens in personality tests in which you have to select an answer from among several available ones. To understand the reason for this peculiarity, it is necessary to understand the value given to interpretation in psychoanalysis.

Interpreting blots

The idea on which Rorschach relied to propose to create a system of psychological evaluation was totally related to the Freudian concept of the unconscious.

The unconscious was, for Freud, a side of the mind whose form had been shaped by old traumas and irrepressible desires.. Hypothetically, this psychic instance directs our way of thinking and acting, even if we are not aware of it, but it must always remain hidden from our consciousness. That is why the unconscious is constantly being repressed by psychic structures that fight to keep it from assailing consciousness, and this continuous struggle can generate psychopathologies.

However, Rorschach also knew the other side of the coin about the repression of the unconscious according to Freud. The creator of psychoanalysis believed that contents of the unconscious can emerge into consciousness and manifest themselves indirectly through symbolic disguises which, by hiding the true nature of what is to be repressed, do not endanger the stability of consciousness. For example, proposed the idea that dreams are symbolic manifestations of desires that must be repressed..

But this way of symbolically disguising elements of the unconscious does not occur only in dreams, but in many other dimensions of human activity. Rorschach came to the conclusion that a part of the unconscious can be projected into symbolic interpretations of what is seen, and so he tried to create a psychological test in which people had to interpret totally ambiguous figures, without any apparent meaning.. Thus, the way they interpreted these totally meaningless forms would reveal hidden aspects of their mind.

The Rorchach test today

Rorschach died at the age of just 37, months after publishing the book that would make him famous, and his symmetrical inkblot test soon began to gain much popularity. It began to be used as a diagnostic tool for mental disorders, but its primary use was as a personality test..

It reached a point where it became so popular in the field of personnel selection that it was one of the most widely used tools in the world of Human Resources, and it also entered forensic psychology to become a resource of expertise in judicial proceedings.

Even today, the Rorschach inkblot test is still widely used both in the judicial field and in companies, and the different schools of the psychodynamic current have continued working to try to improve the interpretation criteria started by the Swiss psychoanalyst. In fact, much effort has been put into perfecting a system of interpretation of the results of the Rorschach test, the best known of which is the Rorschach Comprehensive System promoted in the 1960s by John E. Exner.

However, the popularity of the Rorschach stain test runs parallel to another fact to be taken into account: The Rorschach test does not have the validity and reliability that one would expect from a resource with a good empirical basis.. That is why the use of these stains to evaluate psychological characteristics is considered a pseudoscientific practice.

Criticisms of the Rorschach test

The first argument used to link the Broads test with pseudoscience refers to the epistemological paradigm on which psychoanalysis and the Freudian theories that have given rise to the psychodynamic current in psychology rest. This is so because Rorschach's ideas about the unconscious cannot be tested or falsified: there is no clear way to rule out the unconscious.There is no clear way to rule out the possibility that a person has a childhood trauma or wishes to be protected by an authority figure, for example, because explanations about the unconscious forces driving the person can always be modified on the fly without compromising the initial hypotheses.

Similarly, if someone sees a unicorn on one of the Rorschach plates, there are an infinite number of ways to justify that person being very introverted, to give an example. This criticism, therefore, questions the validity of the theories on which the Rorschach test is based.

The second strand of criticism directed against the Rorschach test is of a more pragmatic nature and questions the usefulness of the test as a diagnostic tool or personality test. It points out that it is neither a valid nor a reliable instrument and that through its use not many robust correlations have been found to establish which type of responses reflect which type of psychological tendencies.. The way in which test-takers' responses are interpreted fails to reflect clear tendencies, and in general the conclusions reached are arbitrary or based on bias.

Conclusions

The Rorschach test is one of the most iconic and best known inventions. He has appeared in series, novels, movies and even gives his name to one of the most famous comic book characters of writer and screenwriter Alan Moore. Alan Moore. It is also often understood as one of the resources that psychologists use to study personality. However, the fact that its theoretical foundations are so questioned greatly undermines its credibility as a diagnostic tool or psychotechnical test.

Bibliographical references:

• Gacono, C. B. and Evans, B. (2007). The Handbook of Forensic Rorschach Assessment (Personality and Clinical Psychology). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum and Associates.

• Lilienfeld, S.O., Wood, J.M., Garb, H.N. (2000). The scientific status of projective techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 1(2), pp. 27 - 66.

• Sutherland, S. (2013). Irrationality: the enemy within. London: Pinter & Martin.

• Wood, J. M., Nezworski, M. T., Lilienfeld, S. O., Garb, H. N. (2003). What's Wrong with the Rorschach?. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.