Rorschachiana

Special section: Psychoanalysis and the Rorschach.
Introduces the Special Section of Rorschachiana on Rorschach and Psychoanalysis". This Special Section includes seven interesting and thought-provoking papers focusing on adolescents, adults and older adults, patient and nonpatient groups, assessment and therapy, utilizing different methodological approaches. They provide further support for the link between the Rorschach and psychoanalysis. The selected articles reflect the work of colleagues from various countries, using different Rorschach systems and theoretical approaches. We hope that their rich and innovative content will contribute to the furtherance of the Rorschach and psychoanalytic thinking in general. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Bridging the gap: Quantitative Rorschach approaches to psychodynamic constructs.
In recent years, a number of researchers have developed Rorschach coding approaches that attempt to quantify psychodynamic constructs. This article describes four such approaches: the Rorschach Defense Scales, Primitive Interpersonal Modes, the Mutuality of Autonomy Scale, and the Rorschach Reality-Fantasy Scale. These four seemingly different approaches have a common goal: creating quantitative Rorschach systems for describing psychodynamic constructs (defense mechanisms, primitive interpersonal modes, self- and object-representations) and the use of potential space. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
An epistemological and methodological approach to drives and diffusion of instincts through the clinical assessment of suicidal adolescents: The contribution of the Rorschach Test.
This article discusses the results of a current research that explores the psychic function of 17 suicidal adolescents aged from 13 to 17 years through projective tests and a clinical interview. The paper focuses on the tendency of these adolescents to respond to the activation of drives in two extreme ways: the compulsion toward the diffusion of instincts, as a result of excessive excitation; and a state of inhibition, resulting from being cut off from the sources of these drives, in an effort to protect from the severe consequences of the diffusion effect. This paper contributes to the comprehension of internal factors that can lead teenagers to commit suicide. In addition, the paper aims to aid in the development of an epistemological and methodological approach within the field of projective assessment through Rorschach concerning what are perhaps the most central and controversial concepts in the theoretical framework of psychoanalysis: aggressive drives, diffusion, and death drives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Countertransference in the Rorschach situation as a clue to the patient’s affective functioning: An exploratory study.
The Rorschach inkblot method (RIM) is a procedure that challenges an individual’s capacities for regulating affective experience. An individual who cannot self-regulate and needs an external agent to do so will find the Rorschach task particularly difficult. Distress is a manifestation of self-regulating difficulties which can lead to interpersonal regulation. Projective identification is a mechanism for regulating intense affects which has been linked with countertransference, and has been defined as the reactions and manifestations in the person of the analyst to the contents projected into him by the patient. Therefore, the clinician’s reactions to his patient are now considered important sources of information about the patient’s mental functioning. In the present study, we empirically evaluated the examiner’s experience and CS variables related to affect regulation, in order to see if it can be used as a source of information about the mental functioning of patients. A sample of 30 participants were administered the Rorschach, and both participants and examiners self-reported their affective experience of the Rorschach situation with the PANAS-m. We found that the emotional experiences of the examinee that have the strongest impact on the examiner (hostile, overwhelmed-invaded, emptied) seem to possess a specific quality. They appear to consist of important aspects of the experience of distress (overwhelmed-invaded and emptied), with hostile features. When looking at CS variables, affect regulation linked variables were found to be generally unrelated to the examiner’s affective experience during the administration of the RIM, except for the affective ratio (Afr), which appeared to be somewhat protective of an interpersonal communication of sadness and emptiness. However, indicators of self and interpersonal perceptions from the CS were found to be quite strongly related to the examiner’s experience during the administration: Morbid content (MOR) and aggressive movement (AG). Thus, a reduced interest in emotional events, a pessimistic view of the self and the anticipation of aggressive exchanges with others appear to be associated with a tendency to regulate painful affects or distress interpersonally. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Changing while remaining the same: Self-representation confronted with aging.
Aging is a clearly evolutionary process that first discreetly and then more starkly modifies social references, cognitive potentialities, and above all bodily integrity and appearance. External reality cannot avoid encountering the internal reality of each one of us. Women and men, with their variable and singular narcissistic and identificatory weaknesses and resources, are invited or even compelled to deal, in a way that is both new and constantly being modified, with loss and incompleteness, with the inevitable nature of our finite destiny, the disenchantment of things left unfinished. This research, based on a qualitative analysis of 110 Rorschach protocols gathered from a random group of men and women – ordinary people between 50 and 90 years of age – allows us to appreciate the quality and perhaps the particularity of the expressions of these mental problem configurations in which the question of nonintegrity proves to be crucial. The results demonstrate how the Rorschach Test can be useful in understanding the diversity of self-representation, by avoiding turning a demographic group into a clinical entity. They show that, contrary to what the first research works in psychoanalysis and projective psychology suggested, aging in itself does not lead to a decrease of the mental processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Using Rorschach CS narrative responses of the MOA Scale to construct and share patient’s model scenes.
The Mutuality of Autonomy Scale (MOAS; Urist, 1977; Urist & Shill, 1982) provides a summary measure of a patient’s repertoire of previous interpersonal interactions. It lends empirical support for the hypothesized salience of object representations, including the patient’s subjective relational experience being an integral facet of personality. It also enhances the therapist’s capacity to access the patient’s inner relational world during the consulting sessions by activating the capacity to think metaphorically. Rorschach narrative responses included in the MOAS are useful in detecting initial representations of a patient’s relational modalities, in sharing the same verbalization, and in helping to construct the initial model scene. This entails significant communication from the patient about his or her life. These scenes can be used by the therapist and the patient to “depict something previously unknown, starting from what is known.” The purpose of using MOAS responses is to give the patient some initial cognitive and emotional representations to configurations of relational experiences, very similar to model scenes (Lachmann & Lichtenberg, 1992). A clinical example is used to illustrate the relationship between MOAS responses and model scenes used in the psychoanalytical framework. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Mentalization and the Rorschach.
The concept of mentalization – the ability to think about mental states (e.g., feelings, intentions, motivations) of self and others – has become increasingly influential in psychoanalysis (Bateman & Fonagy, 2004; Fischer-Kern et al., 2010; Fonagy, 1991). Unfortunately, the clinical application and further exploration of the construct has been limited by the time-consuming and highly specialized methods used to assess it (Choi-Kain & Gunderson, 2008; Meehan, Levy, Reynoso, Hill, & Clarkin, 2009). In that mentalization operates predominantly outside of conscious awareness and involves the assessment of mental representations of self and other, projective measures such as the Rorschach are possibly the most efficient to evaluate and further explore this construct. In this paper we present a conceptual framework for how texture responses (T) as they relate to the ability to form attachments, and human and human movement responses (M+/M–, GHR:PHR) as they relate to empathy, social understanding, and boundary formation, may be utilized in the assessment of mentalization. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Learning from the Inkblot.
The contributions of Wilfred Bion to psychoanalysis and Hermann Rorschach to personality assessment have had considerable influence on psychotherapy. Both authors developed their own systems in attempts to establish a more scientific approach to the study of the mind. This article introduces some key concepts from the work of Bion and shows their applications to the Rorschach Test. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Rorschachiana - Vol 33, Iss 2