Ink Blots or Profile Plots: The Rorschach versus the MMPI as the Right Tool for a Science-Based Profession

Abstract

When a strange new test of perceptual style called the Rorschach reached the New World in the 1920s, it became almost immediately popular. Developed as a psychoana lytic "X ray" of the psyche, it succeeded because American psychologists wanted and needed it to do so, and to do so as that kind of test. Over a decade later, the MMPI was constructed as a more orthodox personality inventory geared to traditional psychiatric categories While this medical legacy was soon removed or obscured, success was more gradual. After the war, clinical psychologists adopted a professional identity independent of psychiatry. Their personality assessment tools, and what counted as success, came to reflect a reclaimed disciplinary genealogy. Standardized mappings and rule-by-numbers tended to displace a trust in experience and expert Judgment. In this context, "proper" Rorschach use came to be seen as indulgent or sadly mistaken. Supporters of the MMPI were, in contrast, able to claim both science and efficiency on their side and colonized the field. The history of these tests clearly illustrates the process of co-production, of how the right tool can become very wrong as networks dissipate and professional time goes by.

Legislative warriors: American psychiatrists, psychologists, and competing claims over psychotherapy in the 1950s

“…In contrast, psychologists' earlier development of standardized tests gave clinical psychologists a clear identity and a fall-back expertise when challenged by encroachment. Testing came to be included in every licensing act defining psychological practice (Buchanan, 1997(Buchanan, , 2002. Likewise, somatic procedures such as psychosurgery and shock therapy promised a core expertise for American psychiatrists midcentury.…”

“…Most clinical psychologists made a connection with applied practice via the use of mental tests. However, tests had limited applicability in psychiatric contexts, and clinical psychologists yearned to expand their professional role (Buchanan, 1997).…”

Of Psychometric Means: Starke R. Hathaway and the Popularization of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

“…In the 1950s and 1960s, the life of the MMPI changed dramatically as it became a highly ambitious psychometric tool, one that provided a means of evaluating the whole of personality and engaging in research into populations (Buchanan 1997). In the 1950s and 1960s, the life of the MMPI changed dramatically as it became a highly ambitious psychometric tool, one that provided a means of evaluating the whole of personality and engaging in research into populations (Buchanan 1997).…”

Blots and All: A History of the Rorschach Ink Blot Test in Britain

“…Levy taught the test to Samuel Beck (1896–1980), a University of Columbia student studying on a fellowship at the Institute (Million, Grossman, & Meagher, ). Beck in turn inspired Marguerite Hertz, and both Beck and Hertz completed dissertations using the Rorschach at Columbia (Buchanan, ). Bruno Klopfer picked up the test in Switzerland where he briefly studied with Carl Jung while escaping Nazi Germany (Skadeland, ; Million, Grossman, & Meagher, ).…”

“…As several historians have noted, the Rorschach became remarkably popular in mid‐twentieth century ‘North American psychology and psychiatry’. In addition to accounts by ‘insiders’ to the Rorschach testing movement in the US, Buchanan () has carefully narrated the rise and fall of faith in the Rorschach with respect to the American Psychological Association's (APA) attempt to define test validity in the decades after the Second World War. More recent critical essays have focused on faith in the Rorschach test's ability to reveal the minds of ‘othered’ groups in postwar American society.…”