Anyone Can Make a Rorschach Inkblot Test
When I was in elementary school, I thought that psychological diagnoses were achieved primarily using tests like that of Rorschach. I remember first learning about the Rorschach Ink blot tests by watching TV and was instantly captivated by the way the inkblots looked. I asked someone what they were suppose to mean, and they told me that it gives insight into another person’s inner thoughts and feelings, I could not have been more intrigued.
I spent some time trying to create my own inkblot tests with paint and white pieces of paper. I would put paint on one half of the page and fold it over itself and look at the design it created. I never gave these out; the tests were mostly for myself. I would look at the image I just created and try to decipher what I thought it meant, but my analysis of my answers ended there, for several reasons.
Firstly, I could not further my interpretation, because I was still in elementary school, so I did not have access to or know of literature on this psychological test. Secondly, the lack of knowledge in constructing a test was not at the forefront of my eleven-year old mind, and my tests were inherently biased, unreliable, and invalid.
However limiting my attempt at understanding the Rorschach Inkblot Test was at the time, I have since acquired a better understanding of what the test is, and psychological testing in general. Subconsciously, I may have ended my pursuit of creating Rorschach-like inkblot tests because I knew subjective testing was limiting and rarely a conclusive measure for analyzing patients. Specifically, I now know that Rorschach Inkblot tests are actually rarely used; even though it is one of the first psychological tests that people think of when talking about psychology — especially with people that are novices in the psychological domain.
I think it is interesting that the general public see Rorschach tests as a compelling and luring. The test does have a unique take on assessing the inner workings of the patient’s mind, yet the accuracy it yields is very low, which many people are unaware of. Considering Rorschach himself could not further his research on his inkblots, we will never truly know where his specific research could have taking his form of psychological testing. However, the state of this subjective psychological test seems hardly reliable to note that a person’s interpretation of an image to be a “bear” means that they have a personality type that means they could lead a major corporation. It seems highly unlikely that all the possible responses for each inkblot can yield comprehensive personality assessments, yet people still take these tests.
Here’s a link I found that provides a personality analysis using 10 Rorschach inkblots, whereby the assessments are described based on a specific situation:
