Ever taken the Rorschach?

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I underwent some neuropsychological tests thirty years ago, when I was in my mid- twenties. I was (understandably) depressed for a variey of legitimate reasons. and in addition to the Wechsler and other cognitive tests, I was given the Rorschach, Thematic Apperception (TAT), and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI).
I finally got a copy of my test report fifteen years later, and was shocked at how they described my personality, character, and overall psyche. In short, they made me out to be a nut case- which wasn't true at all. Of course, they never asked about previous cognittve test scores, and overlooked a very serious functional vision problem (eye teaming, peripheral vision, depth perception, etc.), not to mention my extreme personality profile on the Myers-Briggs.
Looking back, I can now laugh at how the shrinks completely got it wrong, and now realize that they were merely projecting their own issues onto me. Have any of you taken the Rorschach and similar tests? Did they make you out to be nuts?




Cavendish

my rorschach interpreters said i was overly optimistic.

I don't think I could take it. I would just give the "good" answers

Yes. Rorschach and another similar one.

What a complete waste of an afternoon.

I haven't taken the test, but did once use one of the plates as a proposed illustration. Unfortunately the client refused to publish the "disgusting" image! Truth!!

I have read that they care more on how you answer the questions, such as in emotional reaction and how long you take to provide an answer that what you actually see.

I had a psych eval a few years ago that included the aforementioned test. My answers were just what I saw, an ink blot and a Rorschach Test.

Partly. My psychology class did a few ink blots on each other to see how it worked. It was part of a historical psychology lecture, and the point was mostly to show how ink blots aren't really a good evaluation tool. We got totally different interpretations of our answers from student to student, and they didn't correlate with personality inventories that more directly asked you about yourself. The TAT is similar, though not quite so bad.

The MMPI is only a little better than the TAT. It's outdated and not particularly good in detecting psychopathology. It did get my introversion, eccentricity, and lack of stereotypical female traits right; but there's not that much use in that information and there's a good many ways the MMPI can fail. It does have some validity--I'd rather be using the MMPI than ink blots--but it's not ideal.

They gave me that test when I did my 30 day evaluation. I think there might have been some where I didn't see anything and at least one or two where I said I saw nothing because what I saw would have made me seem crazy.

I would answer that each and eberry picture depicted alien sex and describe in detail the extraterrestrial sexual systems at work and play.

I did when I was in elementary school. I just remember saying that one ink blot looked like Godzilla and another looked like two bunnies dancing.

What's wrong with the Myers-Briggs? Isn't personality type important? Of course, mental health types can't make money if they tell someone they have a certain personalilty style and just deal with it.

Yes, and I shouldn't have agreed. Why would you do test to evaluate mental illness to someone who had done nothing worse than LEAVE SCHOOL? I often feel I would have gotten more slack if I'd been a murderer.

Once again, I think I will reply before I read the thread..
I have taken this & the MMPI many times. Well, the testors did not like it when you tell them its an inkblot! Which I have done. Usually I see bats or butterflies. Making up stories about some of them was actually a little difficult for me. And I am a poet! But seriously, its just splotches on paper..
I have gotten a couple of widely varying interpetations of my "difficulties" from these tests. One was a "Cry for Help" another was "No real problems". However, no one bothered to ask me about my history. Which might not have helped, neither HFA or AS was even kown to exist at the time ( the 1980s).
It certainly led to a lot of angst on my therapist's part. Honestly, I did not mean to hurt her pride like that. But theysimply were barking up the WRONG Tree back then. And I did not have a coherent undestanding of ALL my challenges. I did realize at that time in my life I was having enormous difficulties in understanding body language. Other problems friends in my college dorm pointed out but in a way that caused me to shrug off their complaints. I needed more time for insight..
But it cost me everything I had dreamed off, my Life's ambition, before I gained it.. Damn!

Sincerely,
Matthew