The story behind one of psychiatry’s most controversial tests
The story starts in Germany, with a man named Justinus Kerner, who in his later life was a writer and a poet. Since his vision was getting worse due to old age, he spilt ink often, but instead of throwing the paper away he started to draw cartoons and made poems based on the strange shapes of the spilt ink. This way he accidentally created the art of klecksography. Klecksography was first used in psychology as a creativity test, to assess a person's imagination based on what shapes this person was able to distinguish in the inkblots. It was at this point that the Brad Pitt look-alike Hermann Rorschach started his research. He used klecksography and hand-drawn inkblots to study mentally ill patients. He concluded that based on what these patients saw in the images, certain characteristics of their personality could be extrapolated. Originally intended to diagnose psychopathy, these images are now used as a method to assess someone’s personality related to, for example, social interaction or the way you deal with difficult tasks. Now, this all seems like a great scientific achievement, but are Rorschach’s images really more than just some pretty pictures made by a good-looking guy?
The Rorschach test
Do you see two humans in card III? If you do not, you’ll probably have a hard time dealing with social interaction. Do you see a threatening creature on card IV? And a part-human, part-animal figure on card V? This probably means you are gay. When you, as the layperson, would assess your own test with the help of the internet you will come to these kinds of conclusions. However, the assessment of the Rorschach test is a difficult process. When I did my research for writing this article, I initially came to the conclusion that I’m a psychopath. Obviously, I am not qualified to interpret my results correctly. When doing the real Rorschach test you need two people: a Rorschach administrator and an interpreter. To be an administrator you need to take a course of a few months, but to be an interpreter you’ll need years of experience.
Usage
Rorschach images are not widely used, when they were first introduced many psychologists reacted sceptically, the test could easily be faked and it was really difficult to find a general consensus about the meaning of the test results. The United States is one of the only countries that still use the Rorschach test, up until recently a court order could even be given forcing someone to take the test. Outside of the United States, most scientists classify the Rorschach test as ‘pseudoscience’ (read: bullsh*t).
Controversy
As mentioned, many psychologists and psychiatrists do not believe that Rorschach’s test actually works. It has been shown that factors like sex and mood give rise to different results. Furthermore, a lot of people pretend they see things, as in the story ‘The emperor’s new clothes’ where the people pretend they see the emperor’s clothes, who is actually naked, because they are afraid that otherwise, they might not fit in. In addition, with sites like Wikipedia (guilty as charged) publishing the images of the test it becomes even easier to fake it. Of course, there are also people that do believe in the Rorschach test. They claim that it can predict suicidality, homosexuality or even certain diseases like cancer or schizophrenia. In the end, whether you believe in it or not, Rorschach’s legacy is mysterious and most of all interesting to say the least.
