Pre- and Postpsychotherapy Assessment of a Patient With Retrograde Amnesia

Abstract

Retrograde amnesia is the inability to recollect memories from a certain period. In the following case study, a patient was assessed with the Zulliger inkblot test in an initial assessment before psychotherapy. At termination of the psychotherapy, 42 months later, the test was readministered. At this point, the patient had no recollection of having taken the test before, due to retrograde amnesia following electroconvulsive treatment that was given some time before the initial assessment. This situation offers a unique opportunity to study changes in test results after psychotherapy, without the memory effects of normal recollection of the initial testing. On the surface, many responses shared a striking similarity in content and wording. The structural data from coding of the test results, however, indicated important changes. These changes are discussed and elaborated in relation to the changes observed in the psychotherapeutic treatment.

Editorial

“…The first two articles are empirical research studies on the features of morbid responses in first responders (Hwang et al, 2023) and on the construct of Rorschach complexity (Meyer, 2023). The third article focuses on the clinical use of the Zulliger Test as a means of describing changes after therapy in a client with retrograde amnesia (Hammarström & Grønnerød, 2023). The fourth article (Kpassagou, 2023) describes the application of the Rorschach extended inquiry with a client from Togo.Each paper makes a unique contribution to the development of the field of projective assessment and will hopefully be of great interest to clinicians.…”