A Rorschach Study of 67 Alcoholics

Abstract

The Rorschach test was administered to 67 male alcoholics hospitalized at a state mental hospital as part of a pre-experimental test battery before the administration of ACTH. Results were treated in three ways: (1) Comparatively, with the results of other similar studies of alcoholics; (2) Test-oriented, in describing the possible uses of the Rorschach with alcoholics for diagnosis, treatment, and research; and (3) As an empirical basis for the development of a theoretical schema of alcoholism, its dynamics and meaning. The last point will be developed in the succeeding three papers in this series. It was found that the Rorschach can contribute to a meaningful personality description of alcoholics in general, and it may contribute to a differentiation between "types" of alcoholics. Such descriptions and differentiations follow not from preconcieved ideas or behavioral functioning, but rather from quantitative indices of "alcoholic" functioning as obtained from the Rorschach.