ABSTRACT
Over the last seventy years, the Rorschach test has been the subject of a massive body of literature. A variety of systems for administering, scoring, and interpreting the test have been put forward (Exner, 1969); a multitude of studies have examined the significance of particular test signs and patterns of test performance; and innumerable books and papers have described clinical applications of the instrument (Stein, 1956; Lang, 1966; Exner, 1986). Yet what is most striking about this literature is not what it includes, but what it lacks. In these tens of thousands of pages, there is remarkably little discussion of the most significant question that can be asked about the test: What is the nature of the Rorschach task itself?
