Ink stains 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 20th 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 to use it? Is it effective and reliable?
To answer these questions we have to start by knowing the person who invented the inkblot test: the Swiss psychoanalyst Hermann Rorschach
Hermann Rorschach was born in Zurich in 1884, and from a young age he showed a great love for creating figures through the use of paint. After graduating in medicine he began to specialize in psychiatry, and these studies made him fully enter the world of psychoanalysis, which at that time was the psychological trend that was becoming more popular in Europe.
Thus, Rorschach became very familiar with the concepts of free association and of projection, which 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 mental disorders 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, the diagnosis had to start from the interpretation of the way in which the patients’ unconscious manifests itself through their creations. Specifically, Rorschach focused on the interpretation of artistic works created by patients to try to understand how your mind works. This idea was the seed that later gave rise to the creation of the Rorschach test based on inkblots.
The Rorschach test
In 1921, Rorschach published a book called Psychodiagnosis. In this monograph, a psychological test based on the interpretation of ten cards showing symmetrical ink stains was presented for the first time. The curious thing about these sheets was that The property that defined 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 a clear way.
The test of the stains that I had created emphasized total freedom when 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 responses 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 response possibilities 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, we must understand the value given to interpretation from psychoanalysis.
Interpreting stains
The idea on which Rorschach proposed to create a psychological evaluation system was totally related to the Freudian concept of the unconscious.
The unconscious was, for Freud, an aspect of the mind whose shape has been given by old traumas and uncontrollable desires Hypothetically, this psychic instance that directs our way of thinking and acting, even if we do not realize it, but must always remain hidden from our consciousness. That is why the unconscious is constantly being repressed by psychic structures that fight to prevent it from assaulting consciousness, and this continuous fight can generate psychopathologies.
However, Rorschach also knew the other side of the coin about Freud’s repression of the unconscious. The creator of psychoanalysis believed that contents of the unconscious can emerge into consciousness and manifest indirectly through symbolic disguises that, by hiding the true nature of what is wanted 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 that is why tried to create a psychological test in which people had to interpret totally ambiguous figures, with no apparent meaning In this way, the way in which they interpreted these completely meaningless forms would reveal hidden aspects of their mind.
The Rorchach test today
Rorschach died at just 37 years old, months after publishing the book that would make him famous, and his symmetrical inkblot test soon began to gain popularity. It began to be used as a diagnostic tool for mental disorders, but its fundamental use was as a personality test
There came a point where it became so popular in the field of personnel selection that it was one of the most used tools in the world of Human Resources, and it also entered forensic psychology to become an expert resource in judicial processes. .
Even today, the Rorschach inkblot test is 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 that the Swiss psychoanalyst began. . In fact, much effort has been put into perfecting a system for interpreting the results of the Rorschach test, the best known being the Rorschach Comprehensive System promoted in the 60s by John E. Exner
However, the popularity of the Rorschach blot test runs parallel to another fact that must be taken into account: The Rorschach test does not have the validity or reliability that would be expected from a resource with good empirical bases 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 wide test with pseudoscience refers to the epistemological paradigm on which psychoanalysis and the Freudian theories that have given rise to the psychodynamic current of psychology rest. This is because Rorschach’s ideas about the unconscious cannot be tested or falsified: There is no clear way to rule out the possibility that a person has childhood trauma or desires to be protected by an authority figure, for example, because explanations about the unconscious forces that move the person can always be modified on the fly without compromising the initial hypotheses.
Likewise, if someone sees a unicorn on one of the Rorschach slides, there are an infinite number of ways to justify that that person is very introverted, for example. This criticism, therefore, calls into question the validity of the theories on which the Rorschach test is based.
The second aspect of the 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 not a valid or reliable instrument and that through its use many robust correlations have not been found that allow us to establish what type of responses reflect what type of psychological tendencies The way in which the responses of people who undergo the test are interpreted fail to reflect clear trends, and in general the conclusions reached are arbitrary or based on biases.
Conclusions
The Rorschach test is one of the most iconic and best-known inventions. It has appeared in series, novels, films and even gives its name to one of the writer and screenwriter’s most famous comic characters. Alan Moore It is also usually 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.
