Application of the Rorschach test in psychological diagnosis of personality disorders

Abstract

<b>Background</b><br /> The paper presents the authors’ own research, which points to the possibility of applying the Rorschach test in the clinical diagnosis of personality disorders.<br /> <br /> <b>Participants and procedure</b><br /> The clinical research was conducted in the years 2010-2013 in the Neurosis Treatment Center and in the Mental Health Outpatient Clinic. The study population comprised individuals with a medical diagnosis of neurotic personality organization as well as patients with more severely disorganized personality structure. The research participants had never undergone psychological evaluation for personality disorders (for instance, they had never taken the Rorschach test), and therefore it seemed rather difficult to verify the accuracy of the medical diagnoses which they had received, concerning the level of personality destabilization. Eighty Polish individuals participated in the research. The study population comprised 38 males (47.50%) and 42 females (52.50%). The mean age of women was 30.40 (SD = 7.67). The men’s mean age was 35.10 (SD = 8.73). The examined females were somewhat younger than the male subjects. Methods: Rorschach test, clinical interview.<br /> <b>Results</b><br /> The statistical procedures applied in the present study allowed us to conduct empirical examination of the indicators of the investigated variables constituting the major psychological criteria for describing psychological functioning of personality, and thus to identify the main characteristics of neurotic as well as borderline level of personality organization. Analysis of the data obtained as a result of this research allowed us to distinguish two significantly different clusters in the group of 80 examined individuals.<br /> <br /> <b>Conclusions</b><br /> The results of the present investigation indicate that despite the fact that the examined individuals displayed symptoms of different medical diagnoses (F40 and F60), the subjects comprising cluster 1 exhibited a higher level of personality structure compared with the study participants belonging to cluster 2.