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Psychodiagnostik Tafeln/Psychodiagnostics
RORSCHACH, Hermann
Psychodiagnostik Tafeln/Psychodiagnostics
Berne: Hans Huber/Distributed by Grune & Stratton Inc., New York: 1921
A complete set of ink blot test cards, each measuring 24.5 x 18cm and printed on thick heavy card stock in both black and white and colour; with card number and publication details printed to versos; all held in the original folding card case, with titles printed inside double-ruled border to upper cover; the cards themselves very good condition, with some small marks to rectos and a some spotting in places, heavier to the versos; previous owner’s initials [AP?] in ink to the upper right hand corner of versos; the box browned, with red ink mark to upper cover and some previous owner’s pencil markings; sometime a little damp, with mottling and warping to the lower edge and some associated rubbing, creasing and chipping; overall the case has done a very good job in protecting the cards; complete with a folding chart showing the ink blots and an advertisement for the second edition of the accompanying book (vertical fold, some light spotting); a remarkable survival.
[with]
KLOPFER, Bruno & Douglas McGlashan KELLEY
The Rorschach Technique
New York: World Book Company, 1946
8vo., original green publisher’s cloth, printed with lettering and publisher’s devices in yellow to upper cover and spine; pp. [ii], iii-x, [ii], 475, [i]; a good, though used copy, heavily annotated in pen and pencil throughout with previous owner’s name to front paste-down; many passages underlined and with some marginal notes; light spotting to edges of text block, sometimes extending to margins and prelims, though minimally so, lightly rubbed and scuffed to spine tips and corners; some pen marks and one white splash to spine; the folding record chart to rear remaining blank and unused.
First edition of Rorschach’s ink blot cards, together with an early edition of the accompanying manual.
Rorschach was born in Zurich in 1884, and from a young age was known as ‘inkblot’, for his fascination with klecksography - the creation of strange images using ink and folded paper. While studying medicine, he began to work at Cantonal Mental Hospital, and during this time completed his doctoral dissertation under the tutelage of psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, who had also taught Carl Jung. As momentum continued to grow around the psychoanalysis movement, Rorschach began showing his ink blots to children, and analyse their responses. Though he was certainly not the first to experiment in such a way (the French psychologist Alfred Binet had also experimented with inkblots as a test for creativity), the publication of his Psychodiagnostik in 1921 certainly ruffled a few feathers. Many decried its inaccuracies, criticising its pseudoscience and subjectivity, but it nonetheless spawned a huge amount of subsequent research, particularly due to Rorschach’s sudden and unexpected death in 1922 from a ruptured appendix.
Each of the ten ink blots are designed to provoke a reaction from the text subject, and the examiner in turn can then examine the subject’s emotional and cognitive responses to the ink blots, which increase in complexity and colour as the test progresses. Often invoking Pareidolia (a tendency to perceive meaning in an object, pattern or stimulus) and apophenia (seeing meaningful connections between unconnected things), Rorschach noted a pattern in subject’s perceptions of animals, human figures and abstract shapes within his images, and postulated associations related to authority, interpersonal dynamics and sexuality. As a personality test, it has certainly been controversial, but as late as 2003, almost one hundred years later, Wood et al. claimed that the test possessed ‘validity greater than chance’. “Its value as a measure of thought disorder in schizophrenia research is well accepted”, he wrote, “It is also used regularly in research on dependency, and, less often, in studies on hostility and anxiety. …substantial evidence justifies the use of the Rorschach as a clinical measure of intelligence and thought disorder."
First edition sets of the cards are rare to find complete.
RORSCHACH, Hermann
Psychodiagnostik Tafeln/Psychodiagnostics
Berne: Hans Huber/Distributed by Grune & Stratton Inc., New York: 1921
A complete set of ink blot test cards, each measuring 24.5 x 18cm and printed on thick heavy card stock in both black and white and colour; with card number and publication details printed to versos; all held in the original folding card case, with titles printed inside double-ruled border to upper cover; the cards themselves very good condition, with some small marks to rectos and a some spotting in places, heavier to the versos; previous owner’s initials [AP?] in ink to the upper right hand corner of versos; the box browned, with red ink mark to upper cover and some previous owner’s pencil markings; sometime a little damp, with mottling and warping to the lower edge and some associated rubbing, creasing and chipping; overall the case has done a very good job in protecting the cards; complete with a folding chart showing the ink blots and an advertisement for the second edition of the accompanying book (vertical fold, some light spotting); a remarkable survival.
[with]
KLOPFER, Bruno & Douglas McGlashan KELLEY
The Rorschach Technique
New York: World Book Company, 1946
8vo., original green publisher’s cloth, printed with lettering and publisher’s devices in yellow to upper cover and spine; pp. [ii], iii-x, [ii], 475, [i]; a good, though used copy, heavily annotated in pen and pencil throughout with previous owner’s name to front paste-down; many passages underlined and with some marginal notes; light spotting to edges of text block, sometimes extending to margins and prelims, though minimally so, lightly rubbed and scuffed to spine tips and corners; some pen marks and one white splash to spine; the folding record chart to rear remaining blank and unused.
First edition of Rorschach’s ink blot cards, together with an early edition of the accompanying manual.
Rorschach was born in Zurich in 1884, and from a young age was known as ‘inkblot’, for his fascination with klecksography - the creation of strange images using ink and folded paper. While studying medicine, he began to work at Cantonal Mental Hospital, and during this time completed his doctoral dissertation under the tutelage of psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, who had also taught Carl Jung. As momentum continued to grow around the psychoanalysis movement, Rorschach began showing his ink blots to children, and analyse their responses. Though he was certainly not the first to experiment in such a way (the French psychologist Alfred Binet had also experimented with inkblots as a test for creativity), the publication of his Psychodiagnostik in 1921 certainly ruffled a few feathers. Many decried its inaccuracies, criticising its pseudoscience and subjectivity, but it nonetheless spawned a huge amount of subsequent research, particularly due to Rorschach’s sudden and unexpected death in 1922 from a ruptured appendix.
Each of the ten ink blots are designed to provoke a reaction from the text subject, and the examiner in turn can then examine the subject’s emotional and cognitive responses to the ink blots, which increase in complexity and colour as the test progresses. Often invoking Pareidolia (a tendency to perceive meaning in an object, pattern or stimulus) and apophenia (seeing meaningful connections between unconnected things), Rorschach noted a pattern in subject’s perceptions of animals, human figures and abstract shapes within his images, and postulated associations related to authority, interpersonal dynamics and sexuality. As a personality test, it has certainly been controversial, but as late as 2003, almost one hundred years later, Wood et al. claimed that the test possessed ‘validity greater than chance’. “Its value as a measure of thought disorder in schizophrenia research is well accepted”, he wrote, “It is also used regularly in research on dependency, and, less often, in studies on hostility and anxiety. …substantial evidence justifies the use of the Rorschach as a clinical measure of intelligence and thought disorder."
First edition sets of the cards are rare to find complete.