The Psychodynamics of Enuresis: (A Psychoanalytical Study in Rorschach Symbolism)

In his “Psychodiagnostics”, one of the most original contributions to modern psychology, Herman Rorschach (6) developed the fascinating theory that the way in which a person will perceive and structure formless visual material (the well known “inkblots”) closely reflects the structure of his personality. Rorschach furthermore introduced a method of exploring the personality structure by tabulating and scoring the subject's perceptual responses to this amorphous material. In developing his method Rorschach followed a formalistic, statistical approach; he scored the responses by considering such factors as the size of the blot perceived, where it was located on the card and whether the subject saw the blot primarily in terms of shape, color or movement. Each of these scores, as Rorschach demonstrated, corresponded to a particular personality trait. By combining these traits he developed an all-over picture of his subject's personality or of his particular deviations. As the title of his publication indicates, Rorschach conceived of the test as a psychodiagnostic tool, the diagnosis being determined on the basis of where and how the subject saw his responses. In the “Psychodiagnostics” he paid relatively little attention to what the subject saw. If the contents of