Understanding and Using the Rorschach Inkblot Test to Assess Post-Traumatic Conditions

The Rorschach and Trauma – An Update

“…Although not directly related to the Rorschach, the neurobiology of trauma received focused attention in the work of van der and was amplified by others: Schachter (1996), LeDoux (1996LeDoux ( , 1998, Yehuda et al (1992), van der Kolk and Greenberg (1987), Bremner (1999), andDeBellis et al (1994).…”

Relationship of Pretreatment Rorschach Factors to Symptoms, Quality of Life, and Real-Life Functioning in a 3-Year Follow-Up of Traumatized Refugee Patients

“…However, the medium-size correlation between the components when using absolute scores of Trauma Response might indicate a curvilinear relationship. Viglione et al (2012) posed several questions for further research regarding the RIM responses of traumatized individuals; for example, whether perceptual and thought disturbances were associated with overall complexity and thematic richness. We found that individuals with a highly flooded Trauma Response (indicating complexity, thought disturbances, and emotional control problems)-but also individuals with a highly constricted (impoverished) Trauma Response-showed less adequate Reality Testing (indicating perceptual disturbances).…”

“…Furthermore, none of the patients were diagnosed with a psychotic disorder by their therapists. Available research suggests that in posttraumatic conditions, traumatic intrusions disrupt thinking, judgment, concentration, and Reality Testing, but these functions remain intact when associated with nontrauma thoughts (e.g., Viglione et al, 2012). Although our data do not allow causal interpretations, these findings together with theories and findings within developmental psychology and neuropsychology (e.g., Fonagy & Target, 2005;Schore, 2002) provisionally guide our suggestion that the observed impaired Reality Testing and the elevated level of thought disturbances (SevCog) among many of our participants should be understood as primarily trauma-based.…”

“…Ephraim (2002) and Evans (2008) found indications of flooding or constriction shifting from one RIM response to the next, whereas Opaas and Hartmann's (2013) study found that either flooded or constricted characteristics tended to dominate the RIM protocols of the participants at the time of assessment. Viglione, Towns, and Lindshield (2012) observed how RIM responses reveal the struggle between loss of control and overcontrol, which they considered crucial to posttraumatic reactions.…”

Rorschach Assessment of Two Distinctive Personality States of a Person With Dissociative Identity Disorder

“…This performance-based method has demonstrated a sensitivity to less overt deficits such as reality testing, disturbed thought processes, and invasive trauma-related images that may be hard to detect via observations, interviews, and/or self-report (Meyer et al, 2011;Mihura, Meyer, Dumitrascu, & Bombel, 2013;Nørbech, Hartmann, & Kleiger, 2017). As for individuals with severe PTSD symptoms, RIM testing of individuals with DID seems to result in a biphasic reaction to the inkblots, in which emotional flooding and/or a loss of control alternate with emotional and cognitive constriction and/or over-control (Brand et al, 2006;Kaser-Boyd, & Evans, 2008;Meyer et al, 2011;Opaas & Hartmann, 2013;Viglione, Towns, & Lindshield, 2012).…”