The Nature of the Test Data

We can give a fairly correct description of the processes underlying Rorschach responses by speaking of perception, memory, association, critical judgment as to likeness, and communication. However, this description remains rather abstract and lifeless and does not do full justice to the experiential meaning and range of these processes. Rorschach thought that from his test he could draw conclusions not about the content of a person’s experiences but about his individually characteristic way of experiencing. He felt that “at first glance … [it] may appear absurd” to draw such far-reaching conclusions from the results of “so simple an experiment.” ¹ But I think we have to agree with him that it is not at all absurd. Experience is mediated through our perceptions of the world around us and of our inner life. Since perceptual, memory, associative, and other thought processes enter into each perception and each response, something of the experiential quality of these processes may be expected to become apparent directly in the responses or by means of a suitable analysis of the responses.