¶ … client was depressed how might the Rorschach scoring appear? The Rorschach inkblot test is a projective test: subjects view a series of standardized inkblots and their subjective impressions to the test are recorded and scored. "The theory underlying Rorschach's technique was that in the course of interpreting a random inkblot, attention would be drawn away from the subject so that the person's usual psychological defenses would be weakened" ("Projections of who you are," 2012, p.2). Although the content of responses may vary, the uniform nature of the blots and the observations of respondents with different conditions over the years have been used to derive a relatively standardized scoring system for the Rorschach. Rorschach was adamant that although the test might seem to study the subject's imaginative capabilities, in fact responses were often highly predictable. Scoring consisted of evaluating the number of responses; length of reaction time; whether shape alone or color or movement were reflected in the responses; if the figure was interpreted as a whole or in a series of component parts; and only then was what the subject actually saw interpreted for its content ("Projections of who you are," 2012, pp.2-3). Content, in other words, was only one component of the...

While non-depressed persons typically give between 15-30 total responses to the 10 blots, depressed subjects give fewer responses ("Projections of who you are," 2012, p.3). Depressed subjects also tend to give more animal responses than the non-depressed although animal responses overall tend to be extremely popular, frequently composing anywhere from 25-50%, even of the non-depressed; artists and creative professionals tend to give fewer animal responses on average ("Projections of who you are," 2012, p.3). Frequent use of shading is also seen as an indicator of anxiety and depression (Plante, 2010, p.230). Depressives also often respond with excessively literalist interpretations of the blots. For example, when one psychologist was administering the Rorschach to a 24-year-old biracial woman diagnosed with depression named 'Martha,' when asked for a response to the first card she asked: "You mean besides just a blot of ink" and had to be prompted to produce even one response to the card (Plante, 2010, p.231). Although Martha did produce interpretive responses to all of the cards,…