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Projective Techniques Usage Worldwide: A Review of Applied Settings 1995-2015
Projective techniques have been the target of extensive criticism, from both clinicians and academicians, since the 1940s. However, the last two decades have witnessed a steady stream of rather reviled and condescending commentary directed largely on the lack of psychometric credibility of individual projective methods. The intent of the current study is to determine whether this collective movement, evident in the scholarly literature, against projective techniques has had a deleterious impact on test usage worldwide. To that end, the author identified, through an extensive literature review, published survey research that reported on test usage patterns from 1995-2015. The 28 identified studies served as the data pool to ascertain the extent of use of projective instruments within the context of psychological tests available to mental health practitioners. Around 70% of the sample was from the USA, but other countries (e.g., Africa, UK, Hong Kong, Belgium, and Brazil) were also represented. The analysis showed that at least one projective technique was ranked among the top 5 tests, in terms of usage, in 14 of the 28 studies. Moreover, human-figure-drawings, sentence completion measures, and the TAT were ranked among the top 15 tests in all but three of these studies. These findings confirm continued use (albeit to a lesser degree than 50 years ago) of projective tests among mental health practitioners worldwide, despite the onslaught of perennial criticism in the research literature.
2013
the aim of this paper is to review and discuss the scientific status of the projective methods used in personality assessment. projective techniques cannot be exempted from the fundamental requirements of any measuring instrument and especially from those required of psychological tests. Yet if they are modified to meet the criterion of objectivity, their reliability can be compared to that of other tests. Some psychologists wrongly assume that all “projective behaviour” bypasses a person’s defences and so manifests their unconscious needs, motives, and conflicts. it is in this way that some projective techniques have been incorrectly regarded as “projective”, while others satisfy the criteria of the “projective hypothesis”. Rather than being based on empirical findings, some projective techniques are in fact based on speculation alone.
Projective Techniques: An International Perspective
Psychological Reports, 1993
This is a review of findings from four recent surveys on use of clinical tests in the United States, The Netherlands, Japan, and Hong Kong. The preliminary analysis indicates that projective techniques are popular in the assessment of personality worldwide. Obviously, projective tests are ‘universal’ in that unstructured stimuli serve as the basis for assessment and do not pose a language barrier. Also, reliance on projective methods may reflect problems in access to adequately translated and standardized objective tests. More data are needed from developed countries before firm conclusions on the international status of projective techniques can be affirmed.
Psychological test usage: Implications in professional psychology
Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 2000
Do psychological assessments require more time than third parties and managed care are willing to reimburse? A survey of clinical psychologists and neuropsychologists was conducted to evaluate the current uses of psychological assessment instruments. Respondents reported their use of tests for 8 different areas of assessment, the average time spent in performing various assessment services and other assessment practices. Results suggested that a majority of neuropsychologists devote a substantial portion
Attitudes of Academic Clinical Psychologists Toward Projective Techniques
American Psychologist, 1968
A survey concerning the attitudes of academic clinical faculty toward protective, techniques conducted by Thelen et al. (1968) was replicated. The questionnaire was mailed to a stratified sample of faculty in American Psychological Association (APA)-approved programs in clinical psychology. As was found in the 1968 survey, many respondents supported instruction in projectives, but they held generally negative attitudes toward projectives. More of the 1983 respondents than the 1968 respondents expressed negative attitudes toward specific projectives such as the Rorschach. Negative attitudes toward projectives were particularly prominent among the younger respondents in the 1983 survey. Nineteen years ago Alexander and Basowitz (1965) summarized the situation regarding students' attitudes toward projective techniques when they stated, ... The clinical student of today is less concerned than the student of 10 years ago with the problems of diagnosis, less skilled in the use of fantasy material for personality assessment, but more conversant with objective, machine-scored measures used for this purpose, (p. 34) There is good reason to believe that student attitudes toward projective psychological testing are strongly influenced by the attitudes of their instructors (Jackson £ Wohl, 1966; McCully, 1965). Earlier research indicated that academic clinical psychologists saw a decline in the importance of projective techniques (Thelen, Varble, £ Johnson, 1968). More recent research has shown that clinical program directors also see projectives as declining in status (Piotrowski & Keller, 1984). Nevertheless, the ability to use projective techniques is still expected in internship centers (Garfield &
Ninety-three outpatient mental health centers and clinics in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi were surveyed for the frequency of use of various psychological tests. Each component and satellite facility of a center was asked to complete a separate questionnaire. Usable returns were received from 61 of the 93 centers during the 11'-week response period, for an adjusted rate of return of 66%. Data were presented from 111 questionnaires from the 61 centers. The results were discussed in light of recent claims that psychological testing, especially projective techniques, is on the decline. The current findings indicate that testing is an important function of outpatient mental health centers.
Responsible Use of Psychological Tests: Ethical and Professional Practice Concerns
Oxford Handbooks Online, 2013
Psychologists bring to the task of assessing children and adolescents their knowledge of psychometrics and their skills in psychological testing. Ethical standards and professional practice guidelines admonish psychologists to select psychological assessment techniques that are reliable and valid as well as suitable for use with the population being assessed. In this chapter, we argue that when selecting psychological tests to be administered in an evaluation, psychologists must employ, not set aside, their knowledge of psychometrics: unreliable projective techniques should be eliminated from consideration.
Review of Understanding personality through projective testing
Psychoanalytic Psychology, 2013
In the current climate of clinical psychology training in which depth approaches to assessment and treatment are being deemphasized or eliminated (e.g., American Psychological Association Division 12 Presidential Task Force, 1999) in favor of symptom-focused methods, Tuber's Understanding Personality Through Projective Testing is a welcome and refreshing antidote. Tuber's volume follows in the tradition of classics on psychoanalytic psychological assessment such as Rapaport, Gill, and Schafer (1968); Schafer (1954); Allison, Blatt, and Zimet (1968); and Lerner (1998). As important and relevant as those texts continue to be, Tuber communicates his ideas and methods in a manner that is more accessible to contemporary graduate students, pre-and postdoctoral trainees, and early career psychologists who may have had less immersion in psychoanalytic theory than their predecessors in past decades. An experienced clinician, teacher, and supervisor, Tuber strives to write as if the reader is "sitting in my classroom, sharing the dialogue with me" (p. ix), and he is largely successful. Tuber's aims are to (a) present a developmental psychodynamic framework for understanding healthy and maladaptive personality and then (b) delineate how a battery of specific projective tests (Rorschach Inkblot Method [RIM], Thematic Apperception Test [TAT], Sentence Completion Test [SCT], and Animal Preference Test [APT]) are suited to illuminate these aspects of personality. Tuber's introduction establishes that understanding patients phenomenologically is the pillar of his approach. Tuber's thesis is that projective methods are a "refined set of tools to be a better phenomonologist" (p. 5), that is, to tap into a person's internal, subjective experiences and meanings. He adds that such phenomenology must be integrated with a theory of personality that "links individual experience to the wider contexts of human adaptation" (p. 6). In the subsequent chapters, Tuber presents his developmental psychodynamic model and then moves to discuss how the various projective measures operationalize the model's key constructs in a way that elucidates a patient's phenomenological experience.