What the Rorschach Can Contribute to Child Custody and Parenting Time Evaluations

SUMMARY

Personality assessment can indirectly help custody evalu-ators answer important questions about parental competence and the fit between parents' psychological resources and children's needs. It is preferable to use testing to check hypotheses derived from the case information rather than the reverse. The Rorschach makes it possible to assess implicit motives, coping capacities, and need states, thus complementing and supplementing self-attributed personal characteristics from the MMPI-2 and other self-report data. It also offers idiographic information for individualizing assessments. Concerns about admissibility and charges that the Rorschach “overpathologizes” litigants are addressed, and suggestions are offered for making optimal use of the Rorschach in child custody work.

KEYWORDS:

• Rorschach
• child custody evaluation
• forensic
• norms
• MMPI