The Rorschach

A Developmental Perspective

Martin Leichtman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781138872394
• eBook ISBN: 9781134886135
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Applied Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Martin Leichtman's The Rorschach is a work of stunning originality that takes as its point of departure a circumstance that has long confounded Rorschach examiners. Attempts to use the Rorschach with young children yield results that are inconsistent if not comical. What, after all, does one make of a protocol when the child treats a card like a frisbee or confidently detects "piadigats" and "red foombas"?

A far more consequential problem facing examiners of adults and children alike concerns the very nature of the Rorschach test. Despite voluminous literature establishing the personality correlates of particular Rorschach scores, neither Hermann Rorschach nor his intellectual descendants have provided an adequate explanation of precisely what the subject is being asked to do. Is the Rorschach a test of imagination? Of perception? Of projection?

In point of fact, Leichtman argues, the two problems are intimately related. To appreciate the stages through which children gradually master the Rorschach in its standard form is to discover the nature of the test itself. Integrating his developmental analysis with an illuminating discussion of the extensive literature on test administration, scoring, and interpretation, Leichtman arrives at a new understanding of the Rorschach as a test of representation and creativity. This finding, in turn, leads to an intriguing reconceptualization of all projective tests that clarifies their relationships to more objective measures of ability.

	Index

A

Addressor-addressee axis, 169, 198 interpersonal context, 164, 168

ADHD, 250, 259

Affect, 72, 77

Affective experience, 143

Ainsworth, M., 17, 140, 154, 297, 301

Allen, R., 11, 39, 40, 42, 49, 52, 90, 186, 194, 297

Ames, L., 3, 11, 12, 14–18, 29, 39, 43, 49, 50–54, 73, 76, 77, 90, 92, 106, 112, 113, 137, 194, 196, 208–210, 213, 215, 262, 297

on confabulation, 63

on danger signals in, 211–212

developmental model of, 19–20, 25–26

on the test process, 41, 46

Anastasi, A., 154, 297

Anderson, D., 9, 14, 213, 297

Anxiety, 71, 72, 77, 84, 225

Apperception, 127–128, 130, 138

Aranow, E., 11, 14, 298

Armbruster, G., 114, 299

Arnheim, R., 125, 162, 301

Artistic productions (representations), 157, 177

freedom/constraint and, 201–202

handling of referents and, 200–201

projective tests and, 154, 155–156

visual representation and, 193, 199–200

Associations, 186, 187, 194

Associative-assimilative processes, 128, 129, 136

Associative processes, 131, 160, 241, 279

Associative techniques, 150, 151

Athey, G., 267, 271, 279, 280, 282, 283, 287, 298

Auerbach, J., 286, 298

Autistic logic, thought disorder and, 248–249, 267

B

Barbour, C., 267, 302

Baughman, E....

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• PARTI YOUNG CHILDREN AND THE RORSCHACH
• PART II STAGES IN THE MASTERY OF THE RORSCHACH
• PART III PSYCHOSOCIAL ASPECTS OF THE RORSCHACH TASK
• PART IV COGNITIVE ASPECTS OF THE RORSCHACH TASK
• PART V CLINICAL APPLICATIONS
• Conclusion
• Appendix: Colin’s Rorschachs
• References
• Index