A Method to Optimize the Response Range While Maintaining Rorschach Comprehensive System Validity

Abstract

Brief and lengthy Rorschach records have been identified as common problems in protocol administration. Clinicians have debated how to prevent overly short and long records, but they have been reluctant to alter standardized administration for fear of introducing bias. The present study examines a nonintrusive method for constraining responses by prompting for an extra response when only one is offered per card and by removing the card after four responses are given. Among patients who typically produce brief records, consisting of a residential sample of civil and forensic patients with a range of disordered thinking, the alternative administration method demonstrated improved Comprehensive System validity in assessing thought disorder and eliminated the need to readminister the test due to fewer than 14 responses. The findings have clinical implications for protocol administration with thought-disordered populations that typically produce brief records.

Developing Continuous Variable Composites for Rorschach Measures of Thought Problems, Vigilance, and Suicide Risk

“…Finally, the strong validity support for the early R-Opt administration method used in the Dean et al (2007) data suggests that the TP-Comp findings should generalize to the R-Opt administration procedure in R-PAS. Another limitation of this study concerns the type of psychopathology and the patient status represented in these records, such that some populations may be overrepresented (e.g., forensic) and others under-represented (e.g., trauma).…”

“…Dean et al (2007) investigated the PTI among 61 residential care respondents, 31 of whom had psychotic disorders. These individuals were randomly assigned to either a CS Rorschach administration or an alternative administration designed to control the number of responses, similar to the R-Opt procedure.…”

“…To fit with contemporary recommendations and data concerning administration to optimize the range of responses obtained (Dean et al, 2007;Meyer et al, 2011), we used the same procedures as those used to generate the R-PAS norms to statistically model the number Meyer et al, 2011). Applying these R-Opt modeling procedures to our pool of protocols left 1350 records.…”

A Comparison Between Comprehensive System and an Early Version of the Rorschach Performance Assessment System Administration With Outpatient Children and Adolescents

“…For instance, across nonpatient samples from 17 countries the average standard deviation for R was 7.9 (Meyer et al, 2007), whereas the CS normative data (Exner, 2003) instead lead to only 5% and 6% respectively. Thus far more short and long records than initially expected are typically produced.…”

“…With such dramatic swings, one may not be able to determine whether any particular low or high score is associated with the underlying construct or the number of responses, thus potentially hampering interpretive accuracy and certainty. Supportive of these inferences about short records, Dean, Viglione, Perry, and Meyer (2007) demonstrated that prompting for more responses in a clinical setting prone to frequent low R protocols maintains or improves the validity of Rorschach measures of thought disorder and psychosis while reducing the proportion of brief records. Such a result is also in line with Meyer's (1993) empirical findings obtained within an inpatient, adult sample (N = 90), which indicated that the Schizophrenia Index (SCZI; Exner, 1986Exner, , 1991 and Kinder (1990), for example, showed that the total number of R, as well as the number of responses per card, differentiate examinees in interpretively important ways.…”