Using Projective tests for diagnosis?

[surftheiop]

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Today in psych our professor was telling us about how in clinical psychology there is a big battle between the "objective" and "projective" testing methods. I would assume psychiatry would fall very heavily on the objective side, but I was curious if you all find some value in projective tests.

The professor also teaches at the medical school and he says it has always been one of his career goals to try to undo the damage done to the projective tests by bad delivery of and bad interpretation of projective tests.

He mentioned that they are especially useful for diagnosing patients who are not being honest when answering the typical assesments (whether they are intentionally being dishonest or just tricking themselves into thinking there is nothing wrong).

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Projective testing alone will not yield (in my opinion) enough to properly diagnose someone, however in conjunction with other assessments they can be more effective. An MMPI + Rorschach has some pretty decent validity. I use projective testing as "grist for the mill", though some prefer to use them more diagnostically.

One of the challenges with projective testing is the learning curve is much higher than a lot of the objective measures. My Rorschach professor likes to tell his students, "The first couple hundred you give can take awhile, but after that you'll feel a lot more comfortable".