ABSTRACT
In the case of Jim discussed in this volume, psychological test data from his initial assessment collected prior to his treatment as a child were available for study. The present chapter reviews Jim’s Rorschach protocol and compares it with his treatment as an adult. There is a long and rich tradition of projective test-psychoanalytic case material comparison of this type. Rapaport and his colleagues (see Holt, 1968), in their seminal work in the 1930s and 1940s, linked psychological test data with psychodynamic theory, and provided an important source of reciprocal validation of theory, case material and test findings. The utility of psychological testing in this regard also served as an important rationale for the use of psychologists in psychiatric and Veterans Administration hospitals in the 1950s. It served as the backbone for much of the early training of clinical psychologists during that era as well.
