Notes on Shading

On the original inkblot cards made by Rorschach the dark areas were a uniform gray or black. It was only in the printed cards that, due to the poor work of the printer, differences in shading and the more or less vague forms to be glimpsed in these nuances appeared. When Rorschach saw the proofs of the printed cards, in June 1921, he soon realized the possibilities this new feature offered. ¹ In the first edition of his book shading is not mentioned, but in his paper on the test of Oberholzer’s patient, early in 1922, a few weeks before his death, Rorschach had already formed some impressions about the significance of the shading responses. In this paper, which has been added as Chapter VII to the later editions of his book, he says that the shading responses “have something to do with the capacity for affective adaptability, but an anxious, cautious, unfree type of affective adaptation, a self-control in the presence of others and particularly a tendency toward a basic depressive mood and the attempt to control this in the presence of others.” A little later he speaks of the “cautiously adapted and consciously controlled affectivity” indicated by the shading responses. ²