Psychoanalytic Interpretation in Rorschach Testing

by Roy Schafer

This book is written for those who have completed at least their basic clinical training in administering, scoring and interpreting Rorschach test results; preferably the reader should also have clinical testing experience beyond the doctoral level.... More than a solid grounding in Rorschach principles and techniques is required for an adequate reading of this book. The reader should also have a general introduction to psychoanalytic theory and to the data of psychoanalytic observation. Obviously, a book of this sort cannot at the same time attempt to be a text on psychoanalysis; some background of psychoanalytic study is therefore necessarily assumed, even though the reference of psychoanalytic concepts that stand out in this book, such as defense, primary and secondary processes, regression in the service of the ego, and ego identity will be specified along with the indications of relevant psychoanalytic literature.... As a theoretical and clinical statement, this book covers only certain normal and psychiatric subjects, namely those who are (1) white, (2) American or well adapted to American culture, (3) at least average in intelligence and education, (4) from subcultural backgrounds that are not extremely bleak or deviant, (5) in late adolescence or older, and (6) without noteworthy "organic" psychological deficit. The assumptions developed here seem to apply - with appropriate modifications - in other cultural, intellectual, age and neurological contexts, but at present I cannot specify how much they do apply and with which specific modifications and supplementary conceptions. --- excerpts from book's Preface

Hardcover

Published January 1, 1954