Projective Testing

Despite controversy in the development and use of projective testing over the past 80 years, projective testing research and clinical application continue to take place at national and international levels. Historically, projective testing and techniques have been embedded within psychoanalytic-psychodynamic theory, whereby constructs of personality structures and processes can be observed via indirect information provided by individuals. Inherent within the psychoanalytic-psychodynamic framework is the premise of unconscious processes that are mitigated by conscious and unconscious defensive mechanisms. Accordingly, projective testing is a method in obtaining access to the complexities of personality structures and functioning as individuals project elements of their internal world and functioning onto stimuli that vary in degree of ambiguity (i.e., inkblots) and specificity in requests (i.e., telling a story).

Although projective testing was ...