The Rorschach test is probably the best known projective test of all. The black or coloured ink spots that make it up may seem arbitrary and of totally subjective interpretation, and in fact it is a test that without proper training is very complex to evaluate, but it is certainly an evaluation instrument that can reflect information of great interest with respect to the subject being evaluated.

Interpreting it is as we have said complex, and although initially there was a great variety of ways to do it, nowadays there is a very elaborated systematization that allows us to obtain unified criteria when evaluating and interpreting results. This is Exner’s Comprehensive System , which we will discuss throughout this article.

What is the Exner Comprehensive System?

It is called Exner’s Comprehensive System , an interpretative model and methodology of the Rorschach test , which is currently used as the main system for interpreting this projective test and which makes this process much less subjective, to the point that it practically eliminates its subjectivity.

The system in question focuses on a quantitative and operable interpretation of the information reflected by the test in question, and also starts from criteria obtained empirically and based on research generated from the application of Rorschach by both patients and systematizers.

The Exner Comprehensive System emerged in the 1980s, at a time when the Rorschach test had multiple possible interpretations which, although not always in opposition, often did not coincide with each other, producing inconsistent data depending on who interpreted it.

In view of this problem, which was of great concern to the Rorschach Research Foundation (founded in 1968), John Exner and other professionals carried out in-depth research on the different interpretations of the Rorschach test existing at that time, making comparisons between the five main methodologies used at that time in North America: those of Klopfer, Beck, Piotrowski, Rapaport and Hertz.

Exner generated from all of these a comprehensive system that could be used to code and interpret the results obtained by the Rorschach test , giving birth to its Exner Comprehensive System. Although the system was born to help interpret this test, the truth is that some authors have ended up validating it to do the same with other projective tests, such as the Zulliger Test.

What aspects do you value?

The Exner system can come into play once the test in question has been applied, and provides first a common framework in which to set up large categories of elements to be assessed (which will be interpreted later).

In this sense, Exner integrates the elements that Rorschach himself and some of the later interpretative systems generated to propose that before passing this test, the professional should pay attention to the following elements.

1. Location

One of the factors to be assessed is which parts of the patch make up the subject’s response . That is, if the element the subject claims to see is found in the whole of the blot, in a detail that others also frequently find, in parts of the blot that are infrequent in most cases that are identified as such or even if the subject’s interpretation is based on or uses part of the blank spaces on the sheet (i.e. outside the blot.

2. Determinants

This is the type of elements or aspects of the blot that have determined the response issued. One of these determinants to value is the form, which is the most relevant determinant and the one that most usually explains the subject when he tells what he sees.

Another one is the movement , understood as the action that the subject imagines is being carried out (whether it is a person, animal or object and whether it is an active or passive movement). Colour must also be valued, whether it is chromatic (in the colour plates, they are often used together with the shape to identify what is being seen) or achromatic (it is the black and white plates).

Another determinant is shading (which can give an idea of texture, insubstantiality or depth). Besides that we can find the dimensional form, according to which something is identified because in a concrete position in space it has that form. Also pairs and reflections, which occur when a person sees two equal elements or when the existence of one is interpreted as a reflection of the other.

3. Content

This aspect, fundamental in the evaluation, is based on the identification of the type of content that the subject claims to see in the blob . In general, it is considered that the most common responses or types of content include human figures, plants, animals, anatomy or parts of people or animals, objects, organs or sexual elements or artistic elements, among others.

4. Evolutionary quality

This aspect may seem difficult to determine, but it is based on assessing the level of concreteness and use of the various parts of the stain to form a stimulus when giving a response.

5. Formal quality

Assess the precise formal quality of the use of specific tables in which we can check whether the patient’s answers are justifiable based on the elements and shapes of the stain.

6. Organizational activity

Mainly, this aspect to be evaluated refers to whether the set of elements that the subject may have seen in the stain are related to each other .

7. Frequency

Finally, it is necessary to assess whether the patient’s responses are relatively common in the reference population or on the contrary are original and unusual.

8. Special phenomena

In addition, it is also necessary to assess whether there are so-called special phenomena, i.e. strange elements that make responses unusual .

Among these phenomena, we must take into account failures (when the subject fails to respond), the existence of shocks or abnormal behavioural alterations in the face of a stimulus, perseveration, self-reference, collusion, criticism or contamination (several interpretations of the stain are combined).

It is also necessary to evaluate if there are personalizations or if they observe aggressive or morbid (bodies, wounded…) or cooperative (a hug) movements (for example, they see a stabbing), or even if they say they see some abstract concept. This aspect is not always valued, but it is usually added if there are unusual alterations.

Interpreting with the system

We have discussed the main elements to be taken into account when assessing the patient’s response to the application of Rorschach plates. But knowing what to look at is not enough to be able to interpret it once it has been corrected. In order to achieve this, Exner’s comprehensive system proposes to evaluate the data globally , the isolated data not being interpretable.

All previous information has a meaning: time, number of responses, locations, contents (for example, human figures are usually related to this type of relationship, anatomy to worries and narcissism, sexual to repressions… but it also depends on the proportion and frequency with which they appear), determinants such as movement or the level of frequency of responses.

But in order to be able to make a summary of the structure of the personality of the subject, the comprehensive system of Exner configures a series of groupings or sets of data that when linked together, theoretically give an idea of the type of functioning of that part of the personality of the subject .

These groupings allow us to make a structural summary of the subject’s personality. In this sense, there are a total of seven groupings.

1. Main Core or Controls

The set of variables that form this grouping are all those that allow us to analyze if the person being evaluated is capable of organizing and keeping himself focused, in such a way that he controls his thinking and emotional processes. This is the most relevant element of the structure, since it establishes the capacity to make decisions and act.

One of the most relevant indices in this sense is Lambda , through which we look at the type of response in affective situations and which can be assessed from the relationship between the responses in pure form and the total number of responses given.

We can also evaluate the type of experience (if we are introversive, extratensive, ambiguous, limited or dilated), the accessible experience (resources), the base experience (the internal elements that are activated without control) or the stimulations suffered.

2. Affects

This set of variables allows us to value the emotional and affective sphere of the subject , giving information about how the discharges of emotions are regulated, the presence of emotional constriction, the interest and value given to the emotional sphere and the proportion of affectivity, the mental resources to face complex situations or the presence of superficiality or oppositionism. It also allows us to see the existence of depressive tendencies.

The shape-color ratio, affective ratio, white-space responses, or multiple determinants can be calculated.

3. Information processing

In this case we value the existence of organizational effort on the part of the subject, as well as the way in which he processes and integrates the information. It is also linked to the cognitive (specifically the presence or absence of resources) and motivational aspects. It is valued if they pay attention to detail or if they make an effort to process the information. In this sense, the number of organizational activities, or the frequencies of the locations used, are assessed.

4. Mediation

Medication may be more complex to understand than other facets to evaluate, but it mainly refers to the way in which the subject perceives reality in an adequate way and ascribes to conventional responses .

The interpretation of this point has to take into account, for example, the percentage of responses of original and conventional formal qualities, the degree to which the responses are popular, or the use of strange locations, such as the use of blank areas.

5. Ideation

This point explores the way the person thinks and knows. The cognitive and intellectual part .

In this case, aspects such as intellectualization, the presence of Snow White syndrome (avoidance of responsibility), rigidity, clarity of thought, orientation and rationality can be evaluated.

It can be seen through various indexes, and aspects such as the use of abstract/artistic content, contaminations, incongruities or passive and active human movements (and their proportion) are employed among others.

6. Interpersonal

This area obviously refers to the way in which the subject relates to others, valuing his interpersonal interest based on self-image, the tendency to visualize cooperative or aggressive scenes . It can also be interpreted on the basis of determinants such as textures, which may indicate a need for closeness, or the use or non-use of certain content in the answers.

7. Self-perception

In this case, the subject’s perception of himself is evaluated, based on the egocentric index (high would imply high self-esteem, low could indicate low self-esteem) and can be seen in the presence of reflexes, morbid, anatomical contents or uses of the form-dimension dependent.

Bibliographic references:

  • Exner, J. (1994) The Rorschach. A Comprehensive System. Vol 1: Basic Foundations. Rorschach Workshops. Psychumatics. Madrid, Spain.
  • Exner, J. (1996) Rorschach coding manual. Psimatic Edition.
  • Sanz, L.J., Álvarez, C. (2012). Evaluation in Clinical Psychology. Manual CEDE de Preparacion PIR, 05. CEDE: Madrid.
  • Zdunic, A. (2002). The coding model of the Comprehensive System in the Zulliger Test. Test for the use of the test as an evaluation instrument in personnel selection: the influence of the administration context by AngĂ©lica Zdunic. Doctoral thesis. University of Palermo. Argentina.