PA RT O N E

History and Developmentof the Rorschach

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

The 10 figures that constitute the stimuli of theRorschach test were first unveiled to the profes-sional public in September 1921, with the releaseof Hermann Rorschach’s famed monograph,Psychodiagnostik (1941/1942). Since that time,the test has generated much interest, extensiveuse, and considerable research. For at least twodecades, the 1940s and 1950s, its name was al-most synonymous with clinical psychology. Dur-ing those years, the primary role of the clinicianfocused on assessment or psychodiagnosis. Al-though the role of the clinician broadened anddiversified during the 1960s and 1970s, theRorschach remained among the most commonlyused tests in the clinical setting, and that statuscontinues today. This is because considerable in-formation about the psychological characteristicsof an individual can be derived if the test is prop-erly administered, scored, and interpreted.

Most any intelligent person can learn to ad-minister and score (code) the Rorschach. The pro-cedures are reasonably straightforward. On theother hand, Rorschach interpretation is neithersimple nor mechanistic. It is a complex processthat can be demanding. It is complex because itrequires the interpreter to maintain a frameworkof logical conceptualization, without which it isimpossible to develop meaningful conclusions.The process is demanding because it requires theinterpreter to frequently challenge the integrityof the data. On the other hand, the routines of in-terpretation, that is, systematically questioningdata and conceptually organizing findings, are

not difficult to learn if the student of the test haseach of three basic prerequisites.

BASIC PREREQUISITES

A first prerequisite is a reasonably good under-standing of people and the notion of personality.This does not mean that the Rorschach data are,or should be, interpreted directly in the context ofany particular theory of personality. That proba-bly is a mistake. Rorschach-based conclusions ul-timately can be translated into any of a variety oftheoretical models concerning personality but,before doing so, the data should be interpretedin a manner that is consistent with findings onwhich their validity has been based.

Rorschach interpretation always proceeds withthe objective of developing an understanding ofthe person as a unique individual. Stated differ-ently, an awareness that no two people are exactlyalike should prompt any interpreter to strive foran integration of findings about characteristicssuch as thinking, emotion, self-image, controls,and so on in a manner that highlights individual-ity as much as possible.

A second prerequisite for Rorschach interpre-tation is a good working knowledge of psycho-pathology and maladjustment. This does not meana simple awareness of diagnostic labels, or a naiveassumption that concepts such as normal and ab-normal establish discrete criteria from which as-sets and liabilities can be identified. Rather, agood understanding of psychopathology and/or

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maladjustment evolves from an appreciation ofhow characteristics become liabilities, and howvarious mixtures of liabilities breed forms of in-ternal and/or external maladjustment.

The third prerequisite is that the interpretermust have an understanding of the test itself. Itconsists of 10 inkblot figures which, when admin-istered in a standardized manner, prompt the in-dividual to make a sequence of decisions that leadto a series of responses. Once the responses arecoded or scored, compiled sequentially, and usedas a basis for numerous calculations, three inter-related data sets will exist:

1. The verbiage used by the subject when givinganswers or responding to questions raised bythe examiner,

2. The sequence in which the responses have oc-curred as reflected in both the substance ofanswers and the coding or scoring of them, and

3. The structural plot of frequencies for nearly100 variables from which data for more than60 variables, ratios, percentages, and indicesare derived.

Collectively, these three data sets form theinterpretive substance of the test and, typically,will yield enough information to construct avalid and useful description of the psychology ofthe individual.

THE UTILITY OF THE RORSCHACH

Why bother using the Rorschach? There are manyassessment methods that can produce valid anduseful descriptions of people and, although aRorschach-based description of a person usuallyis quite comprehensive, it stems from a rathermodest sample of indirect behaviors (responses toinkblot figures). Thus, findings and conclusionsare mainly inferential. What value do these infer-entially based Rorschach descriptions of peoplehave when contrasted with descriptions formu-lated after a well-developed interview, findingsfrom other psychological tests, or a descriptionbased on the observations of significant others?

The answer to this question is not as straight-forward as some Rorschach advocates mighthope. In reality, Rorschach findings may havelittle or no value in some assessment situations.For instance, if an assessor or referring party isconvinced that a “hardwired” relationship existsbetween the presenting symptoms of the personand the most appropriate treatment for thosesymptoms, Rorschach findings will contribute lit-tle or nothing to a treatment decision. There areother cases in which the purpose of the assess-ment is to select a diagnostic label. Rorschachfindings can contribute to this decision, but it is atime-consuming test and other assessment meth-ods might achieve the “labeling” objective moreefficiently.

The greatest utility of the Rorschach is whenan understanding of a person, as an individual,becomes important for the purpose of selectingtreatment strategies or targets, or when that sortof information is important to other decisionsconcerning the individual. Few, if any, assessmentprocedures can capture the uniqueness of the per-son as does the Rorschach when used appropri-ately. This is because Rorschach responses areproduced by a relatively broad range of psycho-logical operations and experiences.

The same functions and experiences that gen-erate Rorschach responses also produce other be-haviors, such as those observed by friends orrelatives, or noted by those conducting formal in-terviews. Behavioral descriptions of a person thatare derived from observations of significant oth-ers or produced from lengthy interviews often arereasonably accurate but, typically, those descrip-tions do not include information about the psy-chological functions that produce the observedbehaviors. The Rorschach results contain this sortof information.

The nature of the Rorschach task prompts aroutine of decision making under the rather un-usual conditions of looking at inkblot figures. Ahost of psychological characteristics come intoplay when this decision making is required and,because of this, the responses tend to reflect thefeatures of the person as he or she goes about

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the routine decision making of everyday living.Many of these characteristics are not readily ap-parent to the observer of everyday behaviors. Ob-servations focus on the products of psychologicalprocesses, that is, the behaviors. The Rorschachfindings mainly reflect the processes that gener-ate behaviors.

It is in this context that the Rorschach interpre-tations focus on the psychological organizationand functioning of the person. The Rorschach testgives greater emphasis to the psychological struc-ture or personality of the individual rather than tothe behaviors of the person. It is the sort of infor-mation that goes beyond the identification ofsymptoms and searches out etiological issues thatdistinguish one person from another, even thoughboth may present the same symptomatology. Whybother with the Rorschach? If a picture of the in-dividual, as a unique psychological entity, willcontribute significantly to the well-being of thatindividual by assisting in the selection of a treat-ment plan or contributing to other important deci-sions, the few hours involved in administering,scoring, and interpreting the test should be wellworth the effort.

As noted earlier, anyone intending to developskill in the use of the Rorschach should understandthe nature of the test and how it works. Some ofthat understanding is gleaned from history, that is,how the test originated and how it evolved.

THE ORIGINS OF THE TEST—RORSCHACH’S WORK

Although the Rorschach has become an importantclinical tool, its development has not always pro-ceeded in a very systematic manner. Notionsabout what the test is, and is not, and how best itcan be used, have varied considerably over time,and its history has often been marked by contro-versy. It has often proved baffling to researchers,and very irritating to those advocating the strin-gent application of psychometric principles to anypsychological test. In retrospect, it seems obviousthat many of the problems that have marked thedevelopment of the test occurred because most of

those directly involved with it were not alwaysclear about Rorschach’s conceptions or inten-tions, or not always ready to study it in the sort ofempirical framework that Rorschach establishedin his own research.

Rorschach died at the age of 37, only sevenmonths after Psychodiagnostik, was published.The 183 pages (English translation) that comprisethe monograph are rich with concepts, findings,and case examples, but many issues about whichRorschach wrote are not fully explained, and someare addressed briefly, or in a manner that leavesimportant questions unanswered. This is not sur-prising because Rorschach did not regard his workas having yielded a test per se and, by no means,considered his work to be complete. Instead, heviewed his monograph as a report of findings froman investigation into perception. The original titlethat Rorschach selected for his monograph was,Method and Results of a Perceptual-Diagnostic Ex-periment: Interpretation of Arbitrary Forms. Theissue of the title was raised in early August of1920, when the manuscript was being reviewed be-fore the type setting began. Walter Morgenthaler, aclose friend and colleague, who was serving asthe professional editor for the project, wrote toRorschach:

I take this opportunity to include a word about the

title of your work. I believe you are being very

modest about it. Your subject concerns more than

just Perception Diagnostics, much more than that,

and all together more than a “mere” experiment. I

would, therefore, like to suggest as the main title

(in caps) PSYCHODIAGNOSTIK (or something

similar). . . . As a subtitle I could see: “Through

the Interpretation of Chance Forms,” or “Experi-

mental Investigations With the Interpretation of

Accidental Forms.” (Morgenthaler, 1920/1999)

Rorschach was not receptive to this suggestionand two days later wrote to Morgenthaler:

Now about this title. It is not just modesty, I have a

sense of responsibility for the title. I have brooded a

long time about this . . . but nothing has come forth

that has suited me. Expressions such as Psychodiag-

nostik, Diagnostics of Diseases and Personality,

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6 History and Development of the Rorschach

and the like seem to me to go much too far.

. . . Perhaps later, when there is a norm created

through controlled investigations, such an expres-

sion can be used. For now it strikes me as being too

pompous. . . . So I should like to ask you to let the

title stand as it is. (Rorschach, 1920/1999)

But this did not end the matter and, for the nextseveral days, Morgenthaler continued to argueforcefully for a title change, emphasizing thatthe original title could create difficulties in mar-keting the book. Before the end of the month,Rorschach acquiesced, “Not very happily I yield,but your arguments are weighty and so I can donothing else.”

The reasons for Rorschach’s decision to inves-tigate the use of inkblots as a way to detect char-acteristics of people are not fully clear. It was notan original idea, but his approach was distinctive.There had been several attempts to use inkblotsas some form of test well before Rorschach beganhis investigation. Binet and Henri (1895–1896)had tried to incorporate them into their early ef-forts to devise an intelligence test. They, likemany of their day, believed that the inkblot stimu-lus might be useful to study visual imagination.They abandoned the use of inkblots because ofgroup administration problems. Several other in-vestigators in the United States and Europe pub-lished articles about the use of inkblots to studyimagination and creativeness (Dearborn, 1897,1898; Kirkpatrick, 1900; Parsons, 1917; Pyle,1913, 1915; Rybakov, 1911; Whipple, 1914). Itis doubtful that any of this work stimulatedRorschach’s original study, but it is likely that hebecame familiar with much of it before he wrotehis monograph.

It is certain that Rorschach often played thepopular Klecksographie (Blotto) game as a youth.In fact, he even had the nickname “Klex” duringhis last two years in the Kantonsschule, whichmight have reflected his enthusiasm for the game.Ellenberger (1954) has suggested that the nick-name may simply have evolved from the fact thatRorschach’s father was an artist, but that notion

seems less plausible than the fact that Rorschachhimself developed considerable artistic skill dur-ing his youth. Even before reaching adolescence,he was in the habit of making pencil sketches insmall notebooks, and during adolescence createdmany very detailed ink drawings. In late adoles-cence and through the remainder of his life, hepainted extensively with water colors. Most of hissketches and paintings are relatively small, andare quite remarkable for their realism and ex-quisite detailing. In fact, this skill probably con-tributed substantially to the creation of the 10figures that were published with the monographand comprise what has become known as theRorschach Test.

It is very probable that his close friendshipwith a classmate from the Kantonsschule, KonradGehring, played an initial role in stimulating hisexploration of the use of inkblots with patients.The Klecksographie game had flourished in Eu-rope for several decades by the time Rorschachbegan his psychiatric residency in 1910 at theMünsterlingen Asylum on Lake Constance. Thegame was a favorite of both adults and children,and had several variations. Inkblots (Klecks)could be purchased in some stores or, as was morecommonplace, players of the game could createtheir own. Sometimes, it was played by creatingpoem-like associations to the blots (Kerner,1857). In another variation, a blot would be thecenterpiece for charades. When children playedthe game in school, they or the teacher usuallywould create the blots and then compete in devel-oping elaborate descriptions.

Konrad Gehring became a teacher at an in-termediate school close to the MünsterlingenAsylum, and he and his pupils often visited thehospital to sing for patients. Gehring had discov-ered that if he contracted with his students towork diligently for a period of time and then per-mitted them to play Klecksographie, it not onlyprovided an incentive, but his classroom manage-ment problems also were reduced considerably.This routine caused Rorschach to questionwhether Gehring’s gifted pupils demonstrated

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more fantasy in their inkblot responses than didthe less gifted pupils. In 1911, a brief “experi-ment” ensued, lasting only a few weeks, but theprocedure and results caused Rorschach to be-come intrigued with the management potentialthat the game seemed to offer, and also provokedan interest in making comparisons between theKlecksographie responses of Gehring’s male ado-lescent students and his own adult patients. Thus,in a very casual and unsystematic manner, theyworked together for a brief period, making andtesting out different inkblots.

It is possible that little would have come fromthe Rorschach-Gehring “experiment” had not an-other event occurred during the same year.This was the publication of Eugen Bleuler’sfamed work on Dementia Praecox in which theterm schizophrenia was coined. Bleuler wasone of Rorschach’s professors and he directedRorschach’s Doctor’s Thesis, which concernedhallucinations. The Bleuler concepts intriguedthe psychiatric community, but they also posedthe very important issue of how to differen-tiate the schizophrenic from those individualswith other forms of psychosis, especially thosewith organically induced dementia. As almost apassing matter, Rorschach noted that patientswho had been identified as schizophrenic seemedto respond quite differently to the Klecksographiegame than did others. He made a brief report ofthis to a regional psychiatric society, but little in-terest was expressed in his apparent finding.Thus, Rorschach did not pursue the matter withany thoroughness for several years.

In 1910, Rorschach married a Russian, OlgaStempelin, who was studying medicine in Switzer-land. They agreed to ultimately practice in Russia.Rorschach completed his psychiatric residency in1913 and moved to Russia with the expressed in-tention of remaining there for quite some time. Heobtained a position at the Krukova Sanitoriumwhere he worked for about five months, but thenreturned to Switzerland and accepted a position asa resident psychiatrist at the Waldau Mental Hospi-tal near Bern, where he was to work for the next 14

months. It was during that time that he renewedhis close friendship with Walter Morgenthaler, asenior psychiatrist at the hospital. It is very evidentthat Morgenthaler stimulated Rorschach’s think-ing about the potential usefulness of inkblots,and he played a key role in the publication ofRorschach’s monograph.

In 1915, Rorschach obtained a position as a Se-nior Psychiatrist at the Krombach Mental Hospitalin Herisau, and later became the Associate Direc-tor of that facility. It was at Herisau, in late 1917or early 1918, that Rorschach decided to investi-gate the Klecksographie game more systemati-cally. It is likely that the stimulus to that decisionwas the publication of the “Doctor’s Thesis” ofSzymon Hens, a Polish medical student who stud-ied under Bleuler at the Medical Policlinic inZurich. Hens developed his own series of eightinkblots which he group administered to 1,000children, 100 nonpatient adults, and 100 psychoticpatients. His thesis focused on how the contents ofresponses were both similar and different acrossthese three groups, and he suggested that a classi-fication system for the contents of responsesmight be diagnostically useful (Hens, 1917).

There is no doubt that Rorschach questionedthe conclusions offered by Hens. Hens’ approachto classification was very different from the oneRorschach and Gehring had conceptualized intheir casual 1911 exploration. Unlike the Hensemphasis on classifying content, Rorschach wasinterested in classifying other salient characteris-tics of the responses. He was familiar with muchof the literature on perception and seemed in-trigued with, and influenced by, the concepts ofAch, Mach, Loetze, and Helmholtz, and espe-cially the notion of an apperceptive mass. Thatconcept is subtly pervasive in much of his writing.

Rorschach began his systematic investigationwith the premise that groups of individuals, whenpresented with a series of inkblots, would be dif-ferentiated by the characteristics of their re-sponses to the question, What might this be? It isevident that one of his basic postulates was thatthis variation of the Klecksographie procedure

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might ultimately lend itself as a way of differen-tiating schizophrenia.

Rorschach made dozens of inkblots in prepar-ing for his experiment. It is certain that he madeat least 40, and tried out different combinationsof 15 to 20 at the onset. Shortly after beginningthis pilot work, he decided against using simpleinkblots. He did not write much about that deci-sion. His failure to do so, plus the manner inwhich he described the “Apparatus” in his mono-graph, caused many to assume that the figures ofthe test are largely ambiguous inkblots. But thatis not true.

Each of the figures in the test contain numer-ous distinctive contours that are reasonably com-mensurate with objects with which most peoplehave familiarity. Nonetheless, for several decadesafter the test was published, most who used andresearched it were unaware of the substantial fre-quency of potentially reasonable answers thatseem to be readily available to most people. Thereare probably several reasons for this, beginningwith Rorschach’s report of his experiment. In themonograph, Rorschach wrote, “The production ofarbitrary forms is very simple: a few large inkblots are thrown on a piece of paper, the paper isfolded, and the ink spread between the two halvesof the sheet” (p. 15). This description carries theimplication that the stimulus figures are ambigu-ous inkblots. Beyond this point in the monograph,he discontinued the use of the term inkblot(klecks) and referred to the materials as pictures(bilder), plates (tafeln), or figures (figurs).

He also wrote, “Not all figures so obtainedcan be used, for those used must fulfill certainconditions . . . the forms must be relatively sim-ple . . . [they] must fulfill certain requirementsof composition or they will not be suggestive,with the result that many subjects will rejectthem as “simply an inkblot . . .” (p. 15). Mostwho are familiar with the monograph havetended to assume that the figures he selected foruse in the test were selected from a larger groupof inkblots that he created, but that assumptionprobably is not entirely correct.

Rorschach typically made his inkblots on tis-sue paper. A large number of them were donatedto the Rorschach Archives and Museum in1998–1999 by his son and daughter, Wadim andElisabeth Rorschach. They had been safekeepinga large quantity of their father’s papers, proto-cols, tables, correspondence, figures, and artworkuntil a satisfactory site could be established fortheir storage and display. Between 15 and 20 ofthe tissue paper blots have some similarity to thepublished figures, but none contain the exquisitedetailing that is evident in the figures used in thetest. Seven or eight of the tissue paper blots mighteasily be confused as being the published figuresat first glance, but even a casual comparison re-veals the published figures are much more pre-cisely detailed.

It is possible that Rorschach discovered somemethod for creating much more detailing whencreating inkblots, but it seems more likely that heused his considerable artistic talent to detail andembellish the figures that he produced, and addsome of the colorings. In doing so, he added manymore contours and colors to those that appeared inthe original blot. He did this to ensure that eachfigure contained numerous distinctive featuresthat could easily be identified as similar to objectsstored in the memory traces of the individual.This was important in constructing the figures be-cause the premise underlying his experiment wasbased on the perception of arbitrary “forms.”

Rorschach did not elaborate further on the man-ner in which the figures were created, but he didbriefly mention the importance of “ two or threeparallel series” that he was creating, or intendingto create, with the objective that each parallel fig-ure should be designed so that, “ the number of an-swers should compare favorably. Plate I of the newseries should give approximately the same numberof F’s and M’s as Plate I of the original, and so on.Plate V of the parallel series should present an ob-ject equally easy to recognize . . .” (p. 52).1

1 The fact that Rorschach failed to emphasize the exquis-ite detailing of the figures created for the test tended to

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After a few months, he had created a series of15 or 16 figures that seemed most useful for hispurpose. He used at least 15 figures throughmuch of 1918, and possibly into early 1919. Then,apparently after reviewing his findings, reducedthe series to 12 figures, and continued to admin-ister the 12 figures until circumstances causedhim to eliminate two more.

During the period from 1917 to 1919, he main-tained frequent contact with Morgenthaler andalso presented three brief papers concerning hisexperiment at professional meetings. It was in thistime frame that Morgenthaler encouraged him topublish information about his experiment and, bymid-1919, Rorschach became convinced that hiswork had progressed sufficiently to warrant publi-cation. He was especially interested in having thefigures that he was using printed in a standard for-mat so that they could be used by the numerouscolleagues who had expressed interest in his work.

The data that Rorschach had analyzed by mid-1919 were sufficient for him to demonstrate thatthe method he had devised offered considerablediagnostic usefulness, especially in identifyingschizophrenia. In the course of the investigation,he also discovered that clusterings of high fre-quencies of certain kinds of responses, mainlymovement or color responses, appeared related todistinctive kinds of psychological and/or behav-ioral characteristics. Thus, the method seemed tohave both a diagnostic potential and the possibil-ity of detecting some qualities of the personwhich, in the terminology of contemporary psy-chology, would probably be called personalitytraits, habits, or styles.

In addition to Morgenthaler, other colleagues,including Bleuler, were impressed with Rorschach’sexperiment and the diagnostic potential that it

seemed to hold. Several pleaded with him for a loanof the figures he was using so that they could trythem out and numerous colleagues encouragedRorschach to publish his findings in a form fromwhich others could learn to use the method. Gradu-ally, Rorschach became enthusiastic about thisprospect, but encountered a significant obstaclewhen he proposed the work to several publishers.They were uniformly negative about the printing ofthe inkblot figures, citing the complexities and ex-pense involved. One publisher expressed interest,provided that the printing of only one figure wouldbe required. Another agreed to publish a manuscriptbut with the proviso that the number of figures bereduced to six. Rorschach rejected these possibili-ties but continued with his work, adding more sub-jects to his samples.

It was at this point that Morgenthaler inter-ceded on Rorschach’s behalf. Morgenthaler was,at that time, a consulting editor for the firm ofErnst Bircher, a publishing house specializing inmedical books. Morgenthaler had agreed toorganize a series of works, to be published byBircher, concerning various issues in psychiatry.He was also well along toward the completion oftwo books to be included in the series. One ofthese, planned as the first in the series, was abook about one of Morgenthaler’s patients namedWölf li, which attracted much interest after it waspublished (Morgenthaler, 1921/1992). It con-tained considerable artwork that was difficult toreproduce accurately. The manner in whichBircher addressed the problem of the Wölf li art-work convinced Morgenthaler that he could alsodeal successfully with the problems involved inreproducing the blots that Rorschach had created,and he appealed to Bircher to undertake the publi-cation of Rorschach’s monograph.

Bircher agreed, somewhat reluctantly, butsome compromises were necessary. Bircher re-fused to reproduce more than 10 inkblot figuresand also decided that those used by Rorschachwere too large. Although probably dissatisfied,Rorschach agreed to rework the various data ta-bles that he had created so that they would reflect

reinforce the notion that the figures are largely ambigu-ous, an assumption that played an important role whenthe projective psychology movement evolved two decadeslater. He also included information about his investiga-tion that seemed to support that notion and led thoseworking to develop the test into a direction that, gener-ally, ignored the stimulus properties of the figures.

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the accumulated findings for only 10 figures. Healso agreed to a one-sixth reduction in the size ofthe figures, but even well into 1920, before thefinal manuscript was submitted, appealed for atleast one more figure to be added to the series.2

After the final manuscript was submitted inJuly 1920, Rorschach had to reduce it by morethan 60 pages because of cost factors, but moresignificant problems occurred as the proofs of thefigures were created. When they were reproduced,some of the colors were altered substantially, es-pecially on Cards VIII and IX, and a much greaterdifferentiation in the shades of grey and blackwere produced in the achromatic figures. Whereasthree of Rorschach’s original figures (IV, V, andVI) had been created with almost no shading, theprinting process created very notable contrasts inthe tones. Ultimately, Rorschach accepted these“glitches” as offering new possibilities (Ellen-berger, 1954), but it is clear that he was not enthu-siastic about them at the onset. Proof versions forall of the original figures were made at leasttwice, and as many as four proofs were created forsome of the plates. Finally, in October 1920,Bircher wrote to Rorschach, “. . . the glitches canno longer be changed . . . I cannot do it becauseeach print costs too much.”

The manuscript was finally published in Sep-tember 1921. Much of it is based on the findingsthat had accumulated for 405 subjects, of which117 were nonpatients that he subdivided into “ed-ucated” and “noneducated.” The sample also in-cluded 188 schizophrenics who comprised his

basic target population. True to his casual 1911observations, the schizophrenic group did re-spond to the figures quite differently than did theother groups. His major thrust avoided and/orminimized content and, instead, focused on thedevelopment of a format for classifying responsesby different characteristics. He developed a set ofcodes, following largely from the work of theGestaltists (mainly Wertheimer), that would per-mit the differentiation of response features. Oneset of codes, or scores as they have come to becalled, was used to represent the area of the blotto which the response was given, such as W forthe whole blot, D for large detail areas, and so on.A second set of codes concerned the features ofthe blot that were mainly responsible for the iden-tification of the image reported by the subject,such as F for form or shape, C for chromaticcolor, and M for the impression of human move-ment. A third set of codes was used to classifycontents, such as H for human, A for animal, Anfor anatomy, and so on.

Rorschach sternly cautioned that his findingswere preliminary and stressed the importance ofmuch more experimentation. It is apparent that helooked forward to much more research with themethod and invested himself vigorously in it dur-ing the next several months. But then tragedystruck. On April 1, 1922, he was admitted to theemergency room at the Herisau hospital after hav-ing suffered abdominal pains for nearly a week.He died the next morning from acute peritonitis.He had devoted less than four years to his investi-gation of the “Blotto Game.” Had he lived to ex-tend his work, the nature of the test and thedirection of its development might have beenmuch different than proved to be the case.

It is evident that Rorschach was disappointedabout the seeming indifference to his work afterPsychodiagnostik was published. The only Swisspsychiatric journal did not review it and other Eu-ropean psychiatric journals did little more thanpublish brief summaries of the work. The mono-graph was a financial disaster for the publisher.Only a few copies were sold before Rorschach died

2 Although Rorschach used 12 figures well into 1919,there is a definite possibility that he anticipated usingonly 10 figures in the final set well before that time.Some of his correspondence to colleagues, contributed tothe Rorschach Archives and Museum by his son Wadimand daughter Elisabeth, in 1999, includes letters in which10 figures are mentioned. Whether these were writtenprior to his verbal discussions about a monograph withMorgenthaler is not clear, but clearly raises the possibil-ity that he was not disappointed, as I have suggested,about having only 10 figures printed. It also seems likelythat the two figures that were deleted from the 12 blot se-ries were ultimately included in the parallel series thatbecame know as the Behn-Rorschach.

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Introduction 11

and before the House of Bircher entered bank-ruptcy. Fortunately, the subsequent auction ofBircher goods left the monograph and the 10 platesin the hands of a highly respected publishing housein Bern, Verlag Hans Huber. Huber’s reputationfor quality publications, plus a few favorable re-views of the monograph, stimulated interest inpursuing Rorschach’s work further. However,Rorschach’s death, and the fact that the figurescreated in the printing were somewhat differentthan those used by Rorschach in his experiment,posed a significant problem for those who wouldtry to continue his work. But, as discussed in thenext chapter, those were only the basic seeds ofproblems for those who became interested in de-veloping and using Rorschach’s method.

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