Inkblot # 1

This week the challenge word is symmetry. I decided early that at some point in the week I would create an inkblot, as one response to the challenge.

Why an inkblot? Because in my training I learned about the Rorschach Test. As part of putting up this blip I have reminded myself of some of the history of this test. It is good that I did as I was unaware of the early death of its creator, Hermann Rorschach. Having published the inkblots in 1921, and cautioned that his initial findings were preliminary, he died a year later having done no more significant research on his "test".

Rorschach had noticed that some adolescents gave characteristically different answers to a popular game known as "blotto". His interest was in whether such characteristic responses might become a diagnostic aid. After his death, a number of systems were developed for the interpretation of the responses made by those who looked at the blots. The test became a "projective test of personality".

For a stringently critical perspective on the test those who are interested can look here.

It was presented to us as of historical interest, although I knew at least one psychologist who did use the test clinically. Like almost every "test" of personality, any validity comes from the psychologist (or whomever) spending time with the subject talking and listening and discussing.

As with Freud's use of free association, what someone says about an inkblot can be a starting point for further discussion. There is no right or wrong interpretation, nor even any proper way to look at the pattern.

I hope everyone enjoys his or her interpretations, especially as I am really quite pleased with how this looks