Psychodiagnosis of Personality Structure: Neurotic Personality Organization

This chapter applies Kernberg’s psychostructural framework of neurotic personality organization (Acklin, 1992, 1993) to the Rorschach Test. The focus of this contribution is the “highest” level in Kernberg’s framework, the neurotic range of personality organization (Kernberg, 1976). Using Rorschach resources derived from the integration of nomothetic approaches (data derived from Exner’s Comprehensive System) and idiographic approaches (derived from classical and contemporary psychoanalysis), the goal of this chapter is an elucidation of neurotic functioning for the practicing psychodiagnostician using the inkblot test.