ABSTRACT
Projective techniques have been, and still are, one of the major issues that divide the clinically oriented from the psychometric psychologist. To many of the former they are the only kind of test of any value for supplementing clinical observation and interviewing and the case-study approach; they are the psychologist's X-ray apparatus for penetrating beneath the facades and barriers to the deeper needs and dynamic forces in the personality. To their opponents, such as Eysenck (1960a), they are little more than a vehicle for the clinician's imagination and intuition to run riot. They are based on muddled theorizing, and all scientifically conducted attempts to demonstrate their validity have yielded almost completely negative results (cf. also Jensen, 1958). Hathaway (1959) attributes their popularity partly to their giving the clinical psychologist moral support; they shift the burden of decisions about a patient from him to the test, and suggest that he is being more scientific than when he relies on interview methods only.
