Conferência de abertura - O centenário e o futuro do Método de Rorschach

Prof. Dr. Fernando Silberstein (Universidad de Buenos Aires) Celebrating the centenary of the Rorschach test speaks of its relevance and the interest in the possibilities of its use. A century later, we continue to find that it is a unique test because it allows us to see what no other test can show. This technique makes it possible to observe processes before their full clinical manifestation. The test aim of producing an interpretation with a randomly shaped stimulus, together with a scoring of determinants and localizations introduce its own clinic that orients transversely on the functioning of a subject. The Rorschach, as M. Carbonell de Grompone said, is the orchestra conductor that organizes the other data obtained from interviews and other tests. It differs from other techniques because it has a very original scoring system that distinguishes emotional processes in a unique way and has shown its effectiveness and interest for a whole century in each of the innumerable administrations that have taken place in these hundred years. Because of this characteristic, the Rorschach is not a projective test, although a projective reading can be made, but its richness lies in this other type of analysis. John Exner and Nina Rausch de Traubenberg called it structural, perhaps a provisional denomination until a more precise one is found. Understanding the antecedents and foundations of the test implies studying four main axes, a) the conception that a subject can be analyzed through what he or she sees in figures; b) the question about the reasons for the plates, perhaps what has attracted the most attention in general; c) to study the goal defined by Rorschach, the study of the modes of interpretation, d) to study in some detail the conceptual development of the test based on mentalization in the reflex arc. Of all these chapters, perhaps the most relevant is the study of the process of interpretation as it was conceived by Rorschach. From this process follows as a consequence the use of the fortuitous inkblots plates. It is based on the idea that what is seen in an image alludes to a manifestation of subjectivity. However, the question about the origin of such an original scoring remains open. In his short life, Rorschach left two relevant theoretical texts. One is his doctoral thesis on reflex hallucinations and the other is the Psychodiagnosis. The doctoral dissertation constitutes an antecedent of the kinesthesias or movements scoring. In the Psychodiagnosis, published ten years later, a conjunction of the ideas on movement raised in the dissertation with ideas on the other two factors of interpretation, form and color can be observed. The latter, the color response constitutes one of the most complex concepts of his test. The three types of determinants are included in a model of concepts still useful today. These axes of analysis constitute the foundation of the test. What future for this test? They show that the path initiated by its author in 1921 can be further deepened and they also show us that there is not only one future for the test, but many, as many as the various existing developments, with their divergences and convergences.