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A Rorschach compendium

Revised and enlarged

  • Published:
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Summary

  1. 1.

    Perceptanalysis is a personality investigation which consists of analyses of visual images or percepts. The most highly-developed technique in this field is the Rorschach. A brief history of perceptanalysis has been presented.

  2. 2.

    A number of Rorschach symbols have been redefined for the purpose (a) of increasing the wealth of conclusions which can be drawn from the Rorschach without a loss in validity, and (b) of facilitating the interpretation of Rorschach records.

  3. 3.

    The rewritten definitions widen the applicability of the Rorschach method by linking the Rorschach with important conclusions from modern psychopathology. For example, the statement that a person with both assertive and compliant human movement responses had to adjust to each parent in a different way in his early childhood, can be expanded in accordance with generalizations concerning the early influence of parents on personality development. The statement that the two shading symbols, c and c′, represent two ways of alleviating anxiety, through flight and through fight respectively, allows us to widen the Rorschach conclusions by drawing upon what is known from other sources about those two essential methods of handling anxiety.

  4. 4.

    While the new definitions differ frequently and greatly from those of Rorschach, they are not incompatible with the fundamental principles of Rorschach's perceptanalysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, 722 West 168th Street, New York 32, N. Y.

    Zygmunt A. Piotrowski Ph.D.

  2. Graduate School of Arts and Science, New York University, 722 West 168th Street, New York 32, N. Y.

    Zygmunt A. Piotrowski Ph.D.

  3. New York State Psychiatric Institute, 722 West 168th Street, New York 32, N. Y.

    Zygmunt A. Piotrowski Ph.D.

Authors
  1. Zygmunt A. Piotrowski Ph.D.
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Additional information

This paper is a complete revision and a considerable enlargement of an article by Dr. Piotrowski which first appeared inThe Psychiatric Quarterly for January 1947 and later formed part of a revised small teaching manual of the Rorschach method issued by The State Hospitals Press. The present paper will form part of a further complete revision of that manual which is now pending.

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Piotrowski, Z.A. A Rorschach compendium. Psych Quar 24, 543–596 (1950). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02227110

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