The Roschach H Response and Object Relations

Abstract

Developmental theory, cognitive psychology, and object relations theory now offer a general conceptual framework for integrating diverse research findings on the Rorschach human response and for highlighting the developmental significance of interpersonal relationships and their formative contribution to building psychological structure. A comprehensive study of the human response on the Rorschach utilizing three dimensions of Blatt's Concept of the Object Scale (accuracy, differentiation, content) demonstrates that a systematic assessment of object relations--of concepts of self and others--is an important core issue in personality development and useful in making distinctions among diagnostic groups (neurotics, outpatient borderlines, inpatient borderlines, schizophrenics). The results illustrate that particular developmental and cognitive properties of human responses produced on the Rorschach show distinct patterns of differential impairment related to type and severity of psychopathology.

Conceptualization of Children’s Interpersonal Relatedness With the Rorschach: A Qualitative Multiple Case Study

“…This expectation is also consistent with cognitive-behavioral constructs of self-schemas and interpersonal schemas (Burns & Viglione, 1996). The general findings of the Rorschach interpersonal research (Blatt, Tuber, & Auerbach, 1990;Brown-Cheatham, 1993;Burns & Viglione, 1996;Lerner & St. Peter, 1984;Picker, 1984, Ryan, Avery, & Grolnick, 1985Tuber, 1989;Tuber, Frank, & Santostefano, 1989;Urist, 1977) is that form level, affect tone, interactional characteristics, integration and differentiation, benevolence, and other elaborations of human representational components are associated with psychological disturbance, mental health, and interpersonal functioning.…”

“…Rorschach Human Representational components include both humans and anthropomorphized contents and experiences and also interactions that occur between these figures and other Rorschach response components (Blatt, Brenneis, Schimek & Glick, 1976;Blatt & Lerner, 1983;Burns & Viglione, 1996;Fritsch & Holmstrom, 1990;Hertzman & Pearce, 1947;Lerner & St. Peter, 1984;Mayman, 1967;Perry & Viglione, 1991;Picker, 1984;Urist, 1977;Urist & Shill, 1982). The basic underlying tenet of this research is that object representations, or concepts of self, other, and relationships, are accessible through human representational Rorschach responses.…”

Social cognition in borderline personality disorder

“…Early psychoanalytic studies used Rorschach responses to investigate general ability and biases in cognitive empathy in BPD patients (e.g., Lerner and St. Peter, 1984; Stuart et al, 1990; for review see Westen, 1990). In summary, borderline patients showed more malevolent and idiosyncratic, yet cognitive-developmentally advanced representations of people's intentions on the Rorschach test.…”

The Rorschach test in clinical diagnosis: A critical review, with a backward look at Garfield (1947)

“…or some other disorder (Lerner, Albert, & Walsh, 1987;Lerner & Lerner, 1983;Lerner & St. Peter, 1984a, 1984bLerner, Sugarman, & Barbour, 1985;Lerner, Sugarman, & Gaughran, 1981;Lerner & Lerner, 1980;Wilson, 1985). We also eliminated any study that (c) used Kernberg's (1975Kernberg's ( , 1976 criteria for borderline personality organization (Hymowitz, Hunt, Carr, Hurt, & Spear, 1983;Murray, 1985), because these criteria encompass a much broader diagnostic concept than the DSM criteria for BPD, and assess not only BPD, but also a variety of both non-BPD personality disorders and Axis I disorders (Kullgren, 1987;Kullgren & Armelius, 1990).…”