Psychoanalytic Interpretation of the Rorschach: Do We Have Better Hieroglyphics?

Abstract

Schafer (1954) advanced the "Psychoanalytic Interpretation in Rorschach Testing" and asserted that thoughtful interpretation involved more than translating hieroglyphics or scores. In this book, he presented his thesis by describing four defensive styles (repression, denial, projective, and obsessive-compulsive) at various levels of severity of psychopathology. To investigate whether the Structural Summary data from Exner's (1986) Comprehensive System, with its improved reliability and validity and additional scores, allow one to make similar distinctions among the types of defense and severity of disturbance, we rescored the Schafer records. The results of this conservative test of Exner's system suggest that (a) the Comprehensive System reliably distinguishes the repressive style from the other styles, and (b) scores alone may provide adequate measures of severity of disturbance even with form quality excluded. We concluded that Rorschach scores must be understood as complex products of multiple psychological operations and may correspond to different subjective experiences in various contexts.