How to be ConTENT With Rorschach CONtent

Abstract

Abstract. Content analysis is a late and contentious addition to the Rorschach canon. The determinants have ruled. Hermann Rorschach was at best, ambivalent about content analysis, focusing on the perceptual aspects of the process. Rorschachers have been not been conTENT about CONtent. The literature on the pros and cons and the how-to of content analysis is reviewed chronologically, concluding with eight issues and objections that have left Rorschach practitioners malcontent with content. Hoping to help practitioners improve the analysis of Rorschach content, ten suggestions, often with examples, are offered, these “hints” affecting both conceptualization and practice. A case fragment is appended to the review to host the above suggestions and to illustrate the (likely) less frequent “active evocation” of content to further the analysis.

When Inkblot Imitates Life – A Case Study of Rorschach Content Analysis

“…The development and articulation of perceptions and stories help both the assessor and examinee witness mental events long enough to understand them. And yet, assessors must be deliberate and tentative when devising an interpretation so as not to evince "wild analysis" (Freud, 1910;Peterson, 2016;Schafer, 1954;Sinclair et al, 2023).…”