Did you ever ask yourself who you really are? The Rorschach test tries to answer to this question. The Rorschach test is a projective test which means the subjects projects his unconscious mind and thoughts in the image to describe and explain it. There are a lot of different projective tests, but in this case, an inkblot test. In this essay we will discuss whether this test is still valid or not. We are firstly going to present you the creator of this test and what it is all about, after that, we will present you the different inkblots and what they reveal, and finally we will debate on the reasons that pushes this test to be more invalid than valid.
Who is Hermann Rorschach and what is his test?
Early career:
The psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach was born in 1884 on the 8th of November in Zurich. With his mother dying in 1897 Hermann was left with his father that was an art teacher. In high school, Hermann loved an inkblot game named Klecksography. So his father being an art teacher encouraged him to express his creativity. Consequently he created the Rorschach test by combining his psychoanalysis and art skills. (Hermann Rorschach Biography). In 1904 He left and studied botany and geology in the academia of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. He stayed there only one term. Aside of those courses he took French lessons at the university of Berne in 1904. Specializing in psychology he continued his studies in Zurich, Nuremberg and Berlin. He graduated from Zurich’s university
By the mid-50s he was teaching at Berkeley and had been appointed Director of Psychological Research at the Kaiser Foundation. His book "The Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality" was enjoying much success. With extensive study, his team discovered that one third of the patients who received psychotherapy got better, one third got worse and one third stayed the same, meaning psychotherapy wasn't really working.
2. A projective test is a personality test that uses images, words, and a way into someone’s mind. This test is used to uncover the unconscious thoughts people might have. An example that comes to mind is the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) a person is asked to look at images and then the person must write a story of how they interpret this image by describing the scene from beginning to end. We actually did an assignment a while ago which was called “Psychology of Words: Projective Tests and Language,” we were asked to look at an image which was about two women in a lab, and then write a story that has a beginning, middle, and end
The means of the experiment were to document his findings on the treatment of the little boy, the way Freud carried out the experiment was through the father of the boy; Max Graf who was a friend of Freud and also a supporter of Freud’s theories; sending letter to Freud of the conversations that took place between father and son plus the observations of the boys behaviour. The main problem with this study is that Freud had only met Hans on a few occasions which meant that the boy’s father was conducting the real treatment which was based on the replies Freud gave.
Milgram wanted to know if the solders that were involved in the tragic Holocaust willingly were a part of slaughtering more than six million people in the concentration camps. Were the solders psychopaths, or were they just doing as they were told? Werhane also informed that the experiment took place at Yale University in 1960 that consisted of three participants, one was said to be the teacher, the second was the experimenter, and the third was the learner. Although it appeared to the teacher that the roles were assigned by drawing lots, the roles were pre-determined. The teacher was told that the experiment was to help understand the effect of punishment on
Emil Kraepelin was a German physiatrist who became the founder of modern scientific psychiatry, and Psychopharmacology. He was born in 1856, Neusreletiz in Northern Germany, he graduated and received his M.D. from the University of Wurzburg. Emil began his work in the field of psychopharmacology at Wilhelm Wundt’s laboratory at Leipzig University. Later, Kraepelin became the head of a clinic at the University of Dorpat where he began to study the clinical history of his patients with mental illnesses. It was then that he became interested in studying how the course of illnesses and the patterns of symptoms can help identify psychiatric disorders. Kraepelin began to view mental illness evident on individuals in a “clinical” view rather than through the
The test, created in 1921, which determines personality became Kovacs’ main focus. He decided to put on a mask that mimics the test. Rorschach’s old personality, Kovacs, according to him, no longer exists and is now who he truly believes he is meant to be. The first time he puts on the mask is the night, “I [Rorschach] heard thirty-eight people. Did nothing.
1734- Christian Wolff believed in the idea of “Faculty Psychology.” This idea was that the mind could be better developed through mental discipline. Being repetitive of basic skills helped to mold the mind. These beliefs had a lasting impact on American Education.
Sigmund Freud was born on May 6, 1856, in Germany. He received a medical degree and treated psychological disorders. Freud had many theories, but for the theory of evil, he believed that human’s purpose in
While the results of Milgram’s experiment are concrete, their application to real life is questioned because of the deception throughout the procedure. The results of the experiment prove that people are likely to obey in a laboratory setting, but Baumrind exposes the difference between a lab and real life. Because the subject is in an unfamiliar setting he has a certain amount of trust in the authority figure (Baumrind
One of the most influential psychologists of all times is Burrhus Frederic Skinner, also known as B. F. Skinner, who was born on March 20, 1904 in a small town called Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. B. F. Skinner was raised in a warm and wealthy home. His father was a lawyer and his mother was a stay at home mom. In Skinner’s early childhood, it was noted that he and his younger brother, Edward James, liked to build things such as arrows and shack in the woods, to name a few ( ). These construction skills would enable an older Skinner to build the equipment invented for his psychology research. As he grew up, he went through all twelve grades at the same school, graduating with less than eight students. Within these years, he developed an interest in art and literature through drawing and later reading Shakespeare (Dews, 1970).
Sigmund Freud was born in Freiberg, Moravia in 1856. Freud was a distinguished child. He attended medical school in Vienna; from there he became actively embraced in research under the direction of a physiology. He was engrossed in neurophysiology and hoped for a position in that field but unfortunately there were not enough positions available. From there, he spent some of his years as a resident in neurology and director of a children’s ward in Berlin. Later on, he returned to Vienna and married his fiancée, Martha Bernays. He continued his practice of neuropsychiatry in Vienna with Joseph Breuer as his assistant. Freud achieved fame by his books and lectures; which brought him “both fame and ostracism from mainstream of the medical
Psychology is a branch of philosophy until the late 1870’s when it was developed in Germany and the United States as an independent scientific punishment. In 1879, Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory and dedicated it to psychological research in Leipzig, Germany. Wilhelm Wundt was also the first person to be referred as a psychologists. Early sponsors to the psychology field are Hermann Ebbinghaus, who is the pioneer in the study of the memory. William James, who is the father of pragmatism. Ivan Pavlolv, who had develop the procedures that is associated with classical conditioning, which is the learning process which an innate responses to a stimulus that comes to be elicited in response to a neutral stimulus. In 1890, Hugo Munsterberg began writing the application of psychology to production, law and other fields. Also in 1890 Lightner Witmer had established the first psychology clinic.
Sigmund Freud was born into a modest Jewish family in 1856 in Freiberg, who eventually relocated to Vienna in 1860. After a victorious graduation, Freud enrolled into the Medical Faculty at Vienna. Even though, he was avid about his new area of education, he postponed his completion in order to chase his interest in employment as a research assistant in the physiological workroom of Ernst Brücke. Later, in 1885, Freud had the chance to travel to train in Paris for several months beneath Jean-Martin Charcot, a recognized neurologist who focused in the study of emotion and weakness to hypnosis. Not too long after traveling back home, he established his psychoanalytic practice and shaped the many theoretic ideas that made him notorious throughout Europe and the United States. In 1905, soon after Freud distributed one of his first major pieces titled,
On this note, the psychodynamic theory also provided psychological treatments which are still widely used today in therapy for personality disorders. These two treatments in psychodynamic theory are the Rorschach inkblot test and assessment/analysis of dreams. In the Rorschach test the subjects perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analysed using psychological interpretation, complex scientifically derived algorithms or both. These can be used to assess an individual’s personality characteristics. However this Rorschach test itself has been strongly criticised. Firstly
Sigmund Freud was born on the sixth of May in 1856 in what is now Pribor in the Czech Republic, or at the time, Freiberg, a rural town in Moravia. The firstborn son of a merchant, Freud’s parents made an effort to foster his intellectual capacities despite being faced with financial difficulties. From an early age Freud had many interests and talents, but his career choices were limited away from his passion of medical research due to his family’s Jewish background, even though he was non-practicing, and his limited funds.