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  • Essay / The Rorschach Inkblot Test - 2367

    The Rorschach Inkblot Test is one of the best-known and most controversial projective psychological personality tests. In general, projective tests are psychoanalytic tools that help clients reveal their unconscious conflicts through responses to ambiguous stimuli, and can also help psychologists determine psychological disorders. Specifically, the Rorschach allows individuals to interpret a series of abstract inkblots based on their emotional and cognitive function, as well as their interactions (Barlow & Durand, 2009). Apparently, it was Leonardo da Vinci who was the first to realize a possible similarity between inkblot responses and personality, as he asked his students to draw paintings while looking at ambiguous visual shapes and, surprisingly, each painter revealed personal traits in his characters. Then, Justinius Kerner in 1857 claimed that some people made idiosyncratic or revelatory interpretations and used inkblots as projective surfaces, and later in 1896, Alfred Binet who proposed the idea of ​​using inkblots to assess personality functioning and other researchers supported his proposal, and so Whipple published the first standardized inkblot set in 1910. Wayne Holtzman designed a similar inkblot test to correct for limitations of the Rorschach, and its technique includes 45 inkblots and demonstrates moderate inter-scorer reliability and predictive validity (Kaplan and Saccuzzo, 2008). The Rorschach test was introduced by the Swiss Freudian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Hermann Rorschach, after whom the test was named. Hermann was the first to use inkblot stimuli and responses as a diagnostic instrument, published in 1921 in his book “Psychodiagnostik”. The original Rorschach study consists of a kaleidoscope, a tube of mirrors containing colored objects and pieces of glass that, when light enters, creates a colorful pattern that might resemble that of the test. ink stains.Finally, it is up to each psychologist and their opinion whether or not to use it during a clinical diagnosis, but as most research supports, it should not be relied on to draw insights. conclusions because it is not a valid and reliable means. In addition, whoever decides to use it must be responsible for administering it in the most effective way possible, without being biased or directing the responses, since nothing can be perceived as right or wrong. Clients must be informed that they can say whatever comes to mind without fear of being judged, and psychologists must accept that some responses may be meaningful and correlated with their diagnosis, and that other information may be incomplete..