“And then he started realizing that people with different kinds of personalities were seeing things differently and that he could use these images as a real test.”Ĭard five in the Rorschach test series. The inkblots were, “just a way to study how people see things,” he explained. Damion Searls told NPR’s Robert Siegel that the psychologist was initially interested in inkblots as a “perception experiment” rather than a formalized test. While stating that Rorschach was familiar with these particular ink blotches reaches no further than educated conjecture, we know that he was familiar with the work of Szyman Hens, an early psychologist who explored his patients’ fantasies using inkblots, as well as Carl Jung’s practice of having his patients engage in word-association.īut Rorschach took inkblots farther in the world of psychoanalysis. Alfred Binet, the father of intelligence testing, also tinkered with inkblots at the outset of the 20th century, seeing them as a potential measure of creativity. In 1857, a German doctor named Justinus Kerner published a book of poetry, with each poem inspired by an accompanying inkblot. Psychology’s interest in inkblots and imagery association didn’t start with Rorschach, however, writes Blinderman: Then in 1917, he started the work that would represent his own addition to the field and unite his youthful interest with his adult career. in 1912, writes the encyclopedia, and went on to practice in Switzerland in the emerging field of psychoanalysis. After finishing his secondary education, Rorschach wandered for a while before choosing medicine over art as a career. The nickname related to his adolescent fascination with Klecksography, a Swiss game of making pictures from inkblots, writes Ilia Blinderman for Open Culture. In fact, as a high school student, Rorschach was even nicknamed Kleck, which means “inkblot” in German, writes Encyclopedia Britannica. Rorschach inkblots are now iconic images of psychiatry–a little bit art and a little bit science, just like Rorschach himself. The inkblot test that bears his name is a well-known pop culture trope. Instead, he came up with a famous, if now discredited, psychological test. If things had been a bit different, Hermann Rorschach, born on this day in 1884, might have become an artist, rather than a psychologist.
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