Introduction and Historical Background of Rorschach
Introduction and Historical Background of
Hermann Rorschach and The Rorschach
Inkblot Test
Prepared by: Rafael Matthew T. Aspiras
CAS – 06 – 501A
Picture yourself and a friend relaxing in a grassy meadow on a warm summer's day. The blue sky above is broken only by a few white puffy clouds. Pointing to one of the clouds, you say to your friend, "Look! That cloud looks like a woman in a wedding dress with a long veil." To this your friend replies, " There? I don't see that. To me, that cloud is shaped like a volcano with a plume of smoke rising from the top." As you try to convince each other of your differing perceptions of the same shape, the air currents change and transform the cloud into something entirely different. But why such a difference in what the two of you saw? You were looking at the same shape, and yet interpreting it as two entirely unrelated objects.
Since everyone's perceptions are often influenced by psychological factors, perhaps the different objects found in the cloud formations revealed something about the personalities of the observers. In other words, you and your friend were projecting something about yourselves onto the shapes in the sky. This is the concept underlying Hermann Rorschach's (1884-1922) development of his "form interpretation test," better known as the inkblot test. This was one of the earliest versions of a type of psychological tool known as the projective technique.
A projective test presents a person with an ambiguous stimulus and assumes that the person will project his or her inner or unconscious psychological processes onto it. In the case of Rorschach's test, the stimulus is nothing more than a symmetrical inkblot that can be perceived to be virtually anything. Rorschach suggested that what a person sees in the inkblot often reveals a great deal about his or her true psychological nature. He called this the interpretation of accidental forms.
Hermann Rorschach
Rorschach was born in Zürich, Switzerland, the
Hermann Rorschach and The Rorschach
Inkblot Test
Prepared by: Rafael Matthew T. Aspiras
CAS – 06 – 501A
Picture yourself and a friend relaxing in a grassy meadow on a warm summer's day. The blue sky above is broken only by a few white puffy clouds. Pointing to one of the clouds, you say to your friend, "Look! That cloud looks like a woman in a wedding dress with a long veil." To this your friend replies, " There? I don't see that. To me, that cloud is shaped like a volcano with a plume of smoke rising from the top." As you try to convince each other of your differing perceptions of the same shape, the air currents change and transform the cloud into something entirely different. But why such a difference in what the two of you saw? You were looking at the same shape, and yet interpreting it as two entirely unrelated objects.
Since everyone's perceptions are often influenced by psychological factors, perhaps the different objects found in the cloud formations revealed something about the personalities of the observers. In other words, you and your friend were projecting something about yourselves onto the shapes in the sky. This is the concept underlying Hermann Rorschach's (1884-1922) development of his "form interpretation test," better known as the inkblot test. This was one of the earliest versions of a type of psychological tool known as the projective technique.
A projective test presents a person with an ambiguous stimulus and assumes that the person will project his or her inner or unconscious psychological processes onto it. In the case of Rorschach's test, the stimulus is nothing more than a symmetrical inkblot that can be perceived to be virtually anything. Rorschach suggested that what a person sees in the inkblot often reveals a great deal about his or her true psychological nature. He called this the interpretation of accidental forms.
Hermann Rorschach
Rorschach was born in Zürich, Switzerland, the