HOW RELIABLE IS THE RORSCHACH TEST?

In 2009, a single mouse click was enough to cause consternation among American psychologists: Canadian doctor James Heilman had published all 10 Rorschach cards along with the most frequent responses to them on Wikipedia. Making these images readily available, some psychologists complained, made the test itself obsolete because it put patients in a position to prepare themselves for the test and thus manipulate the results. However the specialist literature had long featured complete images of the cards, making them available to practically anyone. In fact, the main grounds for criticism of the Rorschach test as a diagnostic tool was the lack of uniform standards. Despite a number of attempts to establish norms over the preceding 50 years (including the Exner system and, more recently, the R-PAS system introduced in 2012), therapists could arbitrarily interpret a patient’s reactions, possibly leading them to make the wrong diagnosis. Critics viewed the publication of the test images on the Internet as a threat to many professionals working in the field.

Other experts have been less troubled by the Wikipedia article, noting that the Rorschach test is highly complex and dependent on personal interaction between therapist and patient. In America today, the Rorschach test is seen as one tool among many personality tests for arriving with the patient (many therapists prefer the word “client”) at an individual interpretation of what the patient sees in the images. “All people are experts on themselves,” says psychologist Stephen Finn, “and they should be part of the evaluation process.” Compared with their American colleagues, German therapists rarely use the Rorschach test— and when they do, it’s only in conjunction with other tests in an effort to understand the patient’s issues.