Inkblots, Psychotherapy and the Tavistock Clinic

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to recount the early history of the Rorschach's inkblots test in Europe and the USA; its subsequent application in highlighting the ill effects on children of bombing during the Second World War; its wartime use in selecting military personnel; its post‐war use in selecting patients for psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic in London and subsequent decline in this use of Rorschach's inkblots in favour of focus on the psychotherapy patient's transference experience of the psychotherapist treating them. The article ends with evidence of interest, beyond psychotherapy, in Rorschach's inkblots and with the implications of this for the author's principal conclusion regarding the value of these inkblots in evoking the free association and conversation crucial to psychotherapy.