The famous Rorschach test is 100 years old

This year, the International Rorschach Society honors the centenary of the famous test by Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach, who died in 1922, a year after publishing a treatise on 10 inkblots and their different interpretations. Take a look at this test which enjoyed immense popularity after the death of its inventor.

Mathieu Perreault
The Press

ten spots

In July in Geneva, hundreds of psychologists celebrated the centenary of the Rorschach test at the congress of the International Rorschach Society. The test’s 10 spots, presented on 10 cards, are still the same as they were a century ago and the order in which they are presented to patients has never changed. “The patient tells a story from the cards,” explains Mariette Lepage, member of the executive committee of the Quebec Society of Projective Methods, who attended the congress in Switzerland. “The goal is to identify unusual interpretations that could reveal patient information. »

Initially, the idea was that the patient “projected” his unconscious onto the stain, explains Serge Lecours, a psychologist from the University of Montreal who has notably worked on questionnaires for measuring emotions.

“For example, if it describes a lot of small details about the spot, you don’t need to invoke the unconscious to consider it useful clinical information about perhaps excessive attention to small details of life. »

Database

Before publishing the famous 10 cards, the inventor of the test, the Swiss Hermann Rorschach, collected interpretations of his spots by hundreds of children and adolescents he treated, as well as by friends and acquaintances. “From the 1930s, there were many databases of interpretations by patients, particularly in the United States,” says Kari Carstairs, a British psychologist who edited an issue of the journal Roschachiana on the centenary of the invention of the test. “So there were several different interpretations of the test results. Beginning in the 1970s, American psychologist John Exner’s “comprehensive system” unified these interpretations and made more robust the empirical analyzes that linked test scores to psychological disorders. Note that patients’ interpretations of the spots are relatively stable during their adult life, and there are few differences between men and women, according to the British psychologist.

Differences between countries

Surprisingly, for such a seemingly subjective test, the differences between countries are relatively insignificant, according to Patrick Fontan, a psychologist at the University of Paris-Ouest who has worked on the subject. “We are going to see a shift in certain modes of behavior, according to fairly well-known trajectories, says Mr. Fontan. For example, a bereaved Frenchman will not address his grief in public, it will be seen in the results of the Rorschach test. It’s average in France, but in the United States it’s quite unusual, the mourning is more public. So the result is going to be out of the ordinary and the Frenchman acting normally in France is going to be considered on the side of emotional avoidance in the United States. »

Psychoanalysis

The Rorschach test was born at a time when psychoanalysis dominated psychiatry. This association is the source of many criticisms of the Rorschach. “Using the Rorschach to uncover the hidden impulses that govern patients’ actions is very problematic,” says James Wood, a psychologist at the University of Texas at El Paso who published the book in 2003. What’s Wrong with the Rorschach. This criticism is very common, confirms Serge Lecours. “Many critics of the Rorschach are unfamiliar with it and ignore all the empirical work that has been done,” says Mr. Lecours.

psychology in court

Critics of the Rorschach test are particularly opposed to its use in a legal context. “I think it’s the most used test in court in the United States,” says Tess Neal, an Arizona State University psychologist who just supervised a special issue of the Journal of Personality Assessment on psychological testing and justice. “In many cases, expert psychologists make claims that are beyond the capabilities of the Rorschach. The Rorschach test, on the other hand, is much less used in Canadian courts, according to Ron Roesch, a psychologist at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver who contributed to the special issue of the Journal of Personality Assessment.