ABSTRACT
The model of symbol formation advanced by Werner and Kaplan (1963) readily lends itself to conceptualizing the stages through which the Rorschach is mastered. Organized around the orthogenetic principle, it portrays the development of the capacity for representation as a process in which the constituent parts of the symbol situation become progressively more differentiated and coordinated. From this standpoint, the earliest mode of handling the Rorschach, that represented by the inner ring of Figure 5, is one in which symbol and referent and addressor and addressee are experienced in global, undifferentiated ways and in which the resultant products are diffuse and unstable. In the transitional periods and stages that follow, designated by the middle and outer rings of the figure, each component is increasingly distinct from the others, more complex, and better integrated. While psychosocial aspects of the mastery of the Rorschach have been examined in the light of the addressor-addressee axis of this model (see Chapter 13), a full understanding of the salient features of young children's Rorschachs is possible only as changes in the handling of the symbolic vehicle and referent are considered as well.
