ABSTRACT
The extant major Rorschach systems for identifying, coding, and scoring individual examples and composites of disordered language and thinking capture a wide array of forms of disordered verbalization and thought that, with proper training, can be reliably scored. This chapter aims to propose a way of organizing what we currently know about categories of thought disorder scores on the Rorschach. The purpose of presenting an integrated model is twofold. First, the intention is to move beyond the scores themselves toward a fuller conceptual understanding of the psychological processes that they represent. The proposed model serves to organize the panoply of scores in a coherent manner, which conforms to how thought disorder is regarded clinically. Deviant Verbalizations (DVs) involve problems in language production and semantics; retrieval may also be present. With Deviant Responses (DR), there is a loss of focus or loss of set, leading to either brief irrelevant intrusions or rambling, sometimes incoherent, departures from or overinterpretations of the Rorschach task.
