Читать книгу Abnormal Psychology - William J. Ray - Страница 170

Projective instruments are assessment tests composed of ambiguous stimuli. They can range from seemingly random patterns such as an inkblot to ambiguous drawings of individuals or objects. The individual is asked to describe what the patterns look like, what they remind him or her of, or what is being depicted in the drawing.

projective instruments: assessment tests that use ambiguous stimuli to elicit the internal cognitive and emotional organization of a person’s primary thought processes

The basic idea of projective testing is based on the theoretical ideas of Sigmund Freud and others who sought to understand the dynamics of the mind. One important distinction Freud made was between types of thinking (Erdelyi, 1985; Westen, Gabbard, & Ortigo, 2008). Primary process thought, which is seen in dreams or letting your mind wander, is not organized logically but in terms of associations between thoughts and feelings. Secondary process thought, on the other hand, is logically organized. Freud suggested that it was possible to understand the cognitive and emotional connections of a person’s mind in terms of primary process. Freud’s technique for exploring these connections was free association and dream analysis.

The basic technique of free association was to have a person lie on a couch and say whatever came into his or her mind. Since the therapist sat behind the client, there was little in the environment for the client to react to. It was the therapist’s job to notice how a person’s thoughts and emotions were connected. During free association over a period of months, it was assumed that patterns of responding would emerge. It could be, for example, that whenever a client talked about his pet, he would feel sad, or whenever someone began to describe a certain event, he would change the topic.

The Rorschach and its scoring is a complicated process that continues to be the focus of scientific debate.

Lewis J. Merrim/Science Source

Projective techniques were formally introduced in the first half of the 1900s as a means of detecting primary process types of thinking and feeling including instinctual and motivational processes. Since there were few techniques for understanding the connections in one’s mind at this time, professionals saw projective techniques as having potential for understanding how thoughts and feelings formed a cognitive network. It was assumed that projective techniques would give a window into the thought processes of those with mental disorders and how they differ from the thought processes of healthy individuals.

Two of the most well-known projective techniques are the Rorschach inkblot and the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). Both of these tests have a long history of use, although various researchers have been critical of the Rorschach and other projective techniques and suggest clinical situations in which these types of techniques are not useful (Garb, Wood, Lilienfeld, & Nezworski, 2005).