The methodology sheet

As part of the analysis on intellectual faculties, a range of data and ratios allows for both quantitative and qualitative assessment of intelligence.

The quantitative assessment is based on the synthesis determined by the evaluation of several aspects: associative rapidity (the speed of the processes of perception, association and synthesis, which in the dynamics of the Test result in the answers), clarity of associative connections, imaginative productivity, creative ability, mental elasticity and richness of interests, the relationship between ambition and the ability to achieve it, and the possibility of solving new problems.

To fully grasp the investigative content of the Test in all its richness, it must constantly be kept in mind that the object that stimulates interpretations consists of formless blobs so that for each individual subject there will be unique answers.

Therefore, the Rorschach Test can be administered at any age (two and a half years and up) and to any subject regardless of social and/or cultural background.

Interpretations represent the psychological reality of the individual and allow for evaluations that designate a diverse typology of intellectual structures. It is possible to identify and distinguish the following types of intelligence and aptitude:

Abstract theoretical intelligence, based on a special perceptual acuity of remote receptors (talent of observation), enables the subject to work out abstract associations; it is the aptitude for conceptual theoretical thinking, the so-called inner language. Systematic intellectual productivity represents the typical activity of this type of thinking.

Practical, reality-related intelligence is mainly based on tactile and kinesthetic experiences and is the capacity for motor and material processing in relation to practical thinking. The activity of this kind of intelligence is the effective and concrete production, the work of construction, however much it operates on a perceptible material. Practical thinking is related to the more realistic problems of daily life.

Technical intelligence has all the characteristics of practical intelligence, plus it develops more constructive skill and logical rigor in the field of invention.

The intuitive aesthetic attitude rests on a special plasticity of representations from which thought flows.

These types of aptitudes, which are distinguished from each other in the Rorschach Test, appropriately recall the classification into intellectual aptitudes (based on concepts), material aptitudes (based on facts) and spiritual aptitudes (based on representations).

As for the investigation of the affective sphere, formal interpretation allows for a detailed analysis and description.

This assessment succeeds in directing itself at both the more peripheral and deeper affective processes. That is, both on those dynamisms that provoke behaviors, in principle conscious that the subject manifests, almost automatically, in the face of external solicitations; and on those dynamisms that partly escape consciousness and can be considered more primitive in that they are related to instincts.

It is possible, therefore, to understand the level of emotional stability or instability, self-control, adaptation and inhibition.

We derive information about the strength or weakness of the subject’s feelings, the intemperance or impetuosity of his or her affective expressions, which allows us to know the degree of adaptation towards the environment and interpersonal relationships. The type of constructive or aggressive object relations, the degree of security or anxiety, euphoria or melancholy.

What gives the Rorschach test its trustworthiness is that in the experience of interpreting unformed spots the subject reacts affectively in an authentic way, overcoming what are conscious barriers to control. In other words, the indications of the examinee’s affective resonances do not, as is often the case in questionnaires, reflect the examinee’s image of his own affectivity, but rather his actual way of experiencing emotions.