Health

Rorschach Blots Wikipedia Post: Rorschach Test Posted Online

by Jordan Yerman | July 29, 2009 at 06:45 am

3133 views | 4 Recommendations | 3 comments

Doctor James Heilman from Saskatchewan, Canada, has posted the Rorschach Test plates to Wikipedia. This means that the Rorschach Test ink blot images, which one would not normally see outside of a clinical setting, are openly viewable, creating a sort of Rorschach cheat sheet on Wikipedia.

This angers psychologists, who insist that the validity of the Rorschach Test is compromised by the potential for a patient to "study" for it, though overall validity of the test itself is not entirely established in the first place. As these plates have been used for 88 years, a tremendous amount of patient-response data has built up, which means any new plates would be far less useful. Developed in 1921 by Hermann Rorschach, the Rorschach Test is a series of ten inkblot plates used to provide insight into the viewer's mind. Contrary to popular perception, the blots are not all black and white: some are pink, blue and red.

No, this is not a Watchmen article.

What had been a simmering dispute over the reproduction of a single plate reached new heights in June when James Heilman, an emergency-room doctor from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, posted images of all 10 plates to the bottom of the article about the test, along with what research had found to be the most popular responses for each.
“I just wanted to raise the bar — whether one should keep a single image on Wikipedia seemed absurd to me, so I put all 10 up,” Dr. Heilman said in an interview. “The debate has exploded from there.”

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Concerned citizen (not verified)

at 21:52 on August 30th, 2009

So you go ahead and post them anyway without a care, knowing nothing yourself about the use or history of the test, not knowing what damage it will do when some "coached" idiot ends up looking completely psychotic because he/she was trying to beat the system. Idiotic.

garage mafia doc (not verified)

at 05:11 on October 25th, 2009

The diagnosis of psychosis should not be made on the subjective results of such a test. It should be made by a "real" doctor with a Medical Doctorate, not a PhD. Psychology has its place in our society.... just not in our hospitals, courtrooms or penal systems.