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SYSTEMATIZATION:

A Definitive Breakthrough in Rorschach Theory

Alberto A. Peralta*

American Rorschach Archives, Miami FL, U.S.A.

  To bind, that’s good,
  To unbind, that’s better,
  To rebind, that’s perfect!
  [our translation]
   
    G. Bachelard (cited in
    Melon, 1976, p. IV)
   
  To Have and to Be in the child. The child
  expresses readily the relation to the object
  by the identification: I am the object. Having
  is the latter of the two; he falls back again
  into being after the loss of the object.
  [our translation, italics added]
   
    S. Freud (1941/1972)

Given Rorschach’s (1921/1942, Introduction) avowedly inconclusive theoretical founda-tion of his “perceptual-diagnostic experiment,” after his death have alternated an uninterrupted succession of so-called “systematizers” – particularly in the U.S.A. (Exner, 1969) – who claim to have amended and completed the unfinished work of the Master mainly in the sense of the revision of the formal (structural) grid of analysis of his method, beginning with Klopfer (& Sender, 1936ab, pp. 5-6, 19) who set the model to others to come, and extending until today (Exner, 1974-1978-1982). However, with few exceptions (the main one being Rapaport et al., 1945-46/1968, pp. 18-19) their approach has been characterized from its inception – contrarily to Rorschach's manifest wish – precisely by a reluctance to make theoretical commitments (Klopfer & Kelley, 1942, p. 221; Exner, 1974, pp. x-xi), which necessarily has led to questionable (Schachtel, 1942, 1966 pp. v-vi, 1-3; Rosegrant, 1984) and most of the time unlasting results.

Our point is: Was Rorschach's science-making really unsystematic? What do we really mean by the term system? Exner, the last and most comprehensively-focused of our systemati-zers and the one who popularized the use of the term in our field, put it this way in the work that announced his own endeavor (1969):

In that the principal author of the Rorschach technique died prematurely, it seemed only natural that a variety of new investigators soon would come on the scene and, in turn, attempt to extend his basic work. Surely, this has been the case and has led to he [sic] development of a variety of Rorschach Systems. The word Systems is used here as contrasted with theories, in that each System represents an approach to the Rorschach. Each System has its own underpinnings in some other general or specific theoretical approach [italics added]. (p. 7)

Our point of departure, we must say, is diametrically different, as can be deduced by comparing this former quotation with the conception that we share with the noted French linguist G. Guillaume (cited in Melon & Lekeuche, 1989):

An empirical science becomes theoretical science from the moment it agrees to see in reality more and other thing than what sensible appearances show. In other words, a science does not really become a science but by the acceptance of an intellectual ope-ration, whose nature is to substitute for the object of empirical reality, not demanding from the mind but the effort of acknowledging it, an object of a superior reality, issued from a constructive operation of the mind. Now then this substitution is virtually accomplished matter from the instant one introduces in science the notion of system... A system is an abstract being, of pure relation, which intelligence sees with its own eyes, after having made its discovery in itself, on the basis of its more or less veiled existence behind the facts of empirical reality [our translation]. (p. 5)

We do believe there is a close relation between true system and theory (compare Di Paola, 1997, Introduction), and – as surprising and anachronistic as it may sound – that there actually was from the beginning an intuitive (implicit) systematic conception behind Rorschach’s original establishment of the schematic (formal) aspect of his method, that the latter already contains in its original version the germ of its own global structural foundation with no need of external additions or corrections: in his case (as we have demonstrated elsewhere: Peralta, 1995b), psychoanalytic theory prepared the soil for the creation of a specific – although incipient – perceptanalytic Rorschach theory.

Let’s look a little closer at Rorschach's legacy. He indeed postulated a number of definite formal categories which always organize into a triadic schema (purposely leaving content aside) that allows the psychological analysis of the responses to his plates: these were – in exact order – the locations G - D - Dd1 (Zw and Do were originally considered to be subtypes of the latter: 1921/1942, chap. II.6.b) on the one hand, and the determinants B - F - Fb2 (chap. II.5; he intro-duced shading only later – posthumous article i.e. chap. VII.A – being baptized since as Hd by Binder: Schachtel, 1966, pp. 75-77) on the other; and, more importantly, he clearly established the existence of particular interrelationships between them (for ex.: G-B, D-Fb, B:Fb). In what follows we'll concentrate in trying to demonstrate and further this conception.

In his already mentioned historical work Exner (1969), trying to find an explanation for the division in the Rorschach ranks into partially opposing schools, also finds unfortunate that “...none of the authors of the five [U.S.] Systems... had any direct experience with Hermann Rorschach” (p. 7), adding that “it is arduous to predict the extent to which any of these Systems might have developed had Rorschach lived longer or had Oberholzer, Morgenthaler, or Roemer assumed a more active leadership in Rorschach research” (p. 12). Actually, there is one re-searcher who has fulfilled both conditions and consequently has been able to make a funda-mental contribution in the sense of attaining the systematization aimed at by Rorschach: this person is Hans Zulliger3.

Zulliger's key accomplishment which contains in a condensed form his main scientific contributions to our field is the internationally well known three-plate inkblot series comple-mentary to the Rorschach that bears his name, also known as the “Z-Test” (1948-54/1969; cf. Eble, Fernald & Graziano 1963, Lefkowitz 1968, Mahmood 1990; see Figure 1). Besides other Rorschach-domain interests he was particularly appealed by the inkblots' perceptual-formal psy-chologically meaningful characteristics, having studied them in depth throughout his life; few people know for example that he was for decades in Switzerland the scientific supervisor of the printing process of successive editions of Rorschach's original plates that we all have been using with plenty of success (Friedemann, 1956; Huber, 1956).




Figure 1. Zulliger's three-plate inkblot series (Z-Test): plate I is achromatic; plate II includes the colors red (center), green (sides), and brown (below); around two black/gray figures, the central and outer details of plate III are also red. Copyright 1951 by Hans Huber Publishers. Reprinted by permission.


If we concentrate now on his own three plates, there is one feature which immediately calls the expert’s attention: the fully colored blot was positioned by him in the middle as plate II, instead than at the end like in Rorschach's original series; questioned on that point Zulliger, who was an intuitively enormously gifted practitioner rather than a theoretician, answered with the very valid reason that otherwise it would be very difficult with his material to diagnose a color shock (1948-54/1969, chap. 1). This feature has as direct result that on administering the Z-Test, while it is indeed very easy on plate I with its multiple simple G possibilities, the impact of the different colors makes it very difficult if not impossible to obtain a good G to this middle plate II, finally resulting relatively less so on plate III requiring however some combinatory efforts (Zulliger, chap. 1; Simon H., 1973, pp. 139-141; cf. Piotrowski, 1957, pp. 73-74): it just happens that, inadvertently (he made no reference to any previous author or theoretical consideration, besides the above mentioned practical reason), Zulliger has unfailingly reproduced in the sequen-ce order of his plates the course in three acts of the development of human perception (“1° gene-ral and confused view of the whole; 2° distinct and analytic view of the parts; 3° synthetic recomposition of the whole with the awareness one has of the parts” [our translation], in the words of Renan, 1890, p. 301) that Meili-Dworetzki (1939, pp. 258-275; 1939/1956, pp. 108-119) had first so masterfully established in Switzerland with Rorschach’s original plates!4

Salomon, the best Z-Test expert after Zulliger and more inclined into theorization than his mentor, without establishing however the mandatory references to the existing literature just mentioned had already felt previously to us that there were more powerful theoretical reasons behind his overturning decision (1959a, pp. 286-287; 1963, case study p. 173; see below), designating his new series – in a very pertinent way – as “a genetic-structural Rorschach technique” (1962). Conversely, one of the byproducts of our research is the disproving of the frequently endorsed hypothesis (Monod, 1963; Anzieu, 1967; McCully, 1971, pp. 99, 145-146; Simon H., 1993, pp. 274, 287-288 Note 80) that Rorschach somehow symbolized in the sequence order of his plates from I to X the course of human ontogenetic development (as already said on the contrary, by all accounts there it is rather about a spatial than about a temporal order for him: see Endnote 2), supposition in favor of which we cannot find the slightest hint (1921/1942, chaps. I.1, III.1; comp. Dworetzki, 1939, pp. 255-258, and Chabert, 1983, pp. 53-58, 63-64).

But, there is more. Due to their respective formal features each one of Zulliger's plates is in practice not only characterized by a particular mode of apperception as we have seen, but simultaneously also by a specific determinant: I= Hd, II= Fb, III= B (Zulliger, 1948-54/1969, chap. 1; Vogel, 1959; Simon H., 1973, pp. 139-141). It is by the way a well-known fact to ex-perts that these two dimensions of Rorschach formal analysis entertain with each other intimate relationships, in such a way that one or the other of their respective components always reveal to be secretely related; well then, with an accuracy that gives testimony of the solid intuition which presided their composition, in their material crystallization these three inkblots spontaneously reproduce the findings and learned elaborations on these elective correlations of some of the most eminent Rorschachers: primitive G and shading – plate I – form a totally integrated duo (maintained from the beginning by Binder, 1932/1979 pp. 30-31, 1937 pp. 37-38, 43-44, against Beck; corroborated by Dworetzki, 1939 pp. 275-278, 286-287, 1939/1956 pp. 119-122, 129-130, 154; by Holt, 1954, pp. 531-532; and by Salomon, 1962, p. 44), so as do D and color – plate II – on their own (already stated by Furrer, 1930, pp. 7, 20, 50-51, 53, and by Dworetzki, 1939 p. 299, 1939/1956 pp. 117, 135; and analyzed by Bohm, 1959/1977, pp. 308-311), and finally also combinatory G and movement – plate III – mutually demonstrate to each other this elective affinity (about which H. Rorschach himself was already plainly aware: 1921/1942 chap. IV.1, the explicit assertion, and chap. VII.A.1 plate III + Footnote, the explanatory intuition; verified by Dworetzki, 1939 pp. 305-306 and 333, 1939/1956 pp. 139-140, and by Piotrowski et al., 1963, p. 65; and reasoned by Kuhn, 1953/1977, pp. 505-509).

By the same token, relating both data clusters the determinant series ends by acquiring, by logical necessity, a genetic sequence order never before attained in its entirety although sug-gested in isolated observations (compare with Hemmendinger & Schultz, 1960/1977, pp. 90 Footnote 6, 102, and with Schachtel, 1966, chap. 6): it was already more or less known matter the primitive character of the usually undifferentiated reaction to shading, to which follows as intermediate stage the specific response – gradually implying each time a greater formal elabo-ration – to the different colors (exactly as in human development: Dworetzki, 1939, p. 317; Salomon, 1962, p. 49; Schachtel, 1959/1984, chap. 7; Arnheim also, 1974, chap. VII “From light to color” pp. 331-332); and the degree of maturity implied by movement, above all by contrast to color (Dworetzki, 1939 p. 394, 1939/1956 pp. 172-173; Rapaport et al., 1945-46/1968, pp. 357-359, to be compared with Salomon, 1962, chap. V.1; Piotrowski, 1957, p. 120), has become commonplace knowledge. But until now there was still missing an overview (a theoria, in the original Greek meaning of the word) of all of this development, unless we consider as sufficient the induction implicit in Dworetzki (follow the sequence of her references in the previous para-graph, concerning the original French version; comp. Hemmendinger & Schultz, loc. cit.) or afterwards the even very explicit one in Melon5. It is precisely this feature which characterizes Zulliger’s contribution: without theorizing it and without voluntarily aiming at taking benefit from the progressive discoveries with the original series of other experts of his own stature, the quintessence of Rorschach practice and its successive theoretical acquisitions is nevertheless caught in the careful composition of this incomparable three-blot series.

To follow our initial conviction and connect then with the system of Psychoanalysis, as it has anew already been done by Salomon (1959b, 1962, 1963; Peralta, 1995b, pp. 667-668), all that has been said until now allows us to analyze psychodynamically in the Z-Test in a manner seemingly much more closer to the actual events the specific biography of the person being studied in the different stages of its unfolding (psychosexual and/or Ego development), as well as to establish in a more sound manner the respective formal correlations with the Rorschach system. To quote Bohm (1951/1972):

As is known, an experienced Rorschach expert and, above all, familiarized with depth psychology can sometimes deduce important contextual data of the test subject’s inner biography (let’s only recall here HANS ZULLIGER’s case works). Precisely for this part of the experiences with the Rorschach Test there was until now no satisfactory ex-planation offered by experimental psychology… But not only personality, but also all perception, is the result of a process of evolution... There exists then a “micro-macro” relationship in the form of a parallelism, first between the developmental phases of per-ception in isolation and of ontogenesis in general… Only through these relationships be-tween minigenesis of perception and ontogenesis of personality, becomes understandable that a perceptual-psychological experiment, like the Rorschach Test, can reflect and make tangible in practice not only certain basic attitudes (spatial orientation, analytical or glo-bal experience type, and other things), but largely also the “prehistory” of the peculia-rities of experience and of behavior of a personality [our translation]. (chap. 16.V.3)

In that sense, the phases described by Renan and adopted by Dworetzki – “syncretism, analysis and synthesis” – can be translated into psychoanalytic language (Table 1): in plate I we can study the first stages of object relations, where subject and (primary) object still tend in a large mea-sure to be confused with each other during the long process of separation of the dual-union (symbolized by the “interpenetrating” character of chiaroscuro: Salomon, 1962, pp. 43-53; corroborated by Schachtel, 1966, chap. 10; see also those intuitions in Zulliger, 1952); in plate II by contrast is represented the moment of emergence of specific (part) objects able to be apprehended, and of specific affects concerning them, of partial drives each one by its own way (thanks to the selective “cathexing” quality of color: Salomon, 1959b pp. 243-257, 1962 chap. III; compare with Bohm, 1959/1977, pp. 308-311, and with Murphy's phrasing of the 2nd stage, 1947 p. 66); finally on III, “after the loss of the object” as Freud has it (castration acceptance, surpassing of ?dipus, genitality), turning his back on it the subject seizes himself again and his Ego is plainly constituted by way of identification with the absolute primary object as success-fully demonstrated by the unified body image (“introversion” or narcissistic return of libido, classically represented by the movement response: Salomon, 1962, pp. 84-90, 93-96, 109-110; corroborated by Piotrowski, 1957, pp. 171-172, 305-306, and by Chabert, 1983, pp. 4, 70-86, and chap. 5; compare with Dolto, 1961/1981, pp. 73-74). In this global circuit of the Ego which repeats itself unendlessly during the course of life, the 1st and the 3rd moments are the main ones (intuition already present in Binder, 1932/1979, pp. 46-60; and following his example in Salomon, 1962, pp. 63-70) since they face the subject with the crucial identification dilemma of “Who am I?” (poles Other / Self which concern total-object images, exactly as their repre-sentatives Hd / B show a close affinity with whole G responses), non-resolvable – or at least non-mobilizable – dilemma without the mediation through the in-between element that constitutes the (partial and invested: D Fb) object that one can have or loose (Melon, 1976, pp. 106-108 + 85, 38-44).


Table 1
Implicit Psycho-genetic Correlations in Zulliger's Inkblot Series (Z-Test)


 Plates
 
Point of viewIIIIII
Mode ofprimitivedelimitedcombinatory
ApperceptionG DG(& D)
DeterminantsHdFbB
Genetic PsychologyPrimitivePrimitive &Superior
(Dworetzki, 1939)globalizationsuperior analysisglobalization
PsychoanalysisPre-object:Object:Ego (Subject):
(Salomon, 1962)first stageslibidinal organizationidentification


Note. Symbols of the Classical Swiss Tradition (abbrev. from German).

The apparent modification subtly introduced by Zulliger just concerning the dynamic “reading” of Rorschach's original and simple perceptual-diagnostic formal schema (his scoring and interpretation categories, respected all the way) has actually produced the unveiling of the secret of its infinite power as a mirror of the human reality, through the demonstration of its perfectly projected good-Gestalt quality, of the absolutely meaningful articulation of its ele-ments: in short, it has achieved its definitive systematization in the full meaning of this word. In Kant's (1781/1926) philosophical conception the true SYSTEM is composed by definition of a complete or finite number of CATEGORIES (Schotte, 1963/1990, p. 31) admitting no further additions, but significantly and intimately related to one another in such a way that the coherency and perfection of the whole assures its validity and richness as meaningful organizer and truth revealer of empirical reality (compare Di Paola, 1997, Introduction). From this standpoint it becomes understandable why we are so critical of those theoretically blind successive “syste-matizers” of Rorschach’s perceptanalytic schema who have attempted to amend and extend it, because with them one is never sure if this or the next one will be the final and “best” version of the method, or if there still is a new scoring “category” to be added. And also from this (psycho-analytic) theoretical perspective, confronted with the Classical System (in the sense of the “Great Classics,” timeless: Rorschach, 1921/1942, chap. VIII Table XVIII) Exner's comprehensive effort also falls short of attaining an improvement, chiefly because of the heterogeneous origin of its elementary components:

The systematizers of the test have not reconciled.... A[n]...element, in the decision to develop the Comprehensive System, is the fact that most “Rorschachers” solve the dilemma of several systems privately, by intuitively adding a “little Klopfer,” a “dash of Beck,” a few “grains” of Hertz, and a “smidgen” of Piotrowski, to their own experience, and call it The Rorschach. This personalized approach frequently is very useful. In fact, when the work presented here, based largely on empirical data, is compared with the judgements of those who “personalize,” a significant congruence is noted [italics added].... The goal of this work is to present, in a single format, the “best of the Rorschach.” This system draws from each of the systems, incorporating those features which, under careful scrutiny, offer the greatest yield, and adds to them other components based on more recent work with the test... It is not based on any particular theoretical position [italics added], and hopefully, can be useful to both the behaviorist and the phenomenologist. (1974, pp. x-xi)

The method that the author is presenting in those words is exactly the kind of piecemeal ap-proach that Kant criticizes as “rhapsodical” assembly by simple juxtaposition of more or less disparate elements (Schotte, 1963/1990, pp. 55-56) in a global “mosaic” where the details, due to their heterogeneous origin (Exner's own opinion: 1974, pp. 7, 10-13, 16, 17), cannot hold toge-ther or make sense with the same power of meaning (compare with Arnheim, 1974, chap. IX “Dynamic Composition” pp. 432-434; and Holt, 1954, p. 503 point 4); while on the contrary in Rorschach’s case, beginning from a global conception including a limited number of factors but obviously meaningfully interrelated, the author has accomplished in his system sort of one of his own constructive and creative GB+ where all details are dynamically articulated with perfect coherence (cf. Bohm, 1951/1958 pp. 42-43 139-141, 1951/1972 chaps. 4.A.II and 7.I). Besides Psychoanalysis and despite Exner's final wish, what gives structure to Rorschach's percept-analytic schema (that is, the grid of his formal factors of location and determination, organized in the new way of – but implicit in – Zulliger: Table 16) is that in it is represented as well the “accomplished series” of originary phenomenological dimensions of the unfolding human exis-tence (according to Deese – who may be called Heidegger's successor – , cited in Schotte, op. cit., pp. 21 Note 1, 53, 74 Note 4, and in Delion, 1999, p. 580: see below).

We cannot in the present context go into further detail, but we do not want to left un-mentioned still other leads to a deeper theoretical (philosophical) foundation of our assertions (see Table 2): they concern the very close correspondence, already pointed at, between our developments and the “triads” that in the growing complexity of the concepts of which they are composed reflect the originary dimensions or structures of the development of human thinking according to several authors (European as well as American), besides – but particularly in – Deese (cited in Bohm, 1951/1972, chap. 15.II.1 Footnote 17; in Melon, 1976, p. 29; and in Schotte, 1990, pp. 35-37, 52-54, 106-107, 206 Footnote 28). Let's choose here as sole but compelling example his series “pieces-parts-members” to show how some eminent Rorschach exponents have arrived – independently – to absolutely identical concepts: a “primitive” res-


Table 2
Philosophical/Psychological Concepts (Structural Existential Triads)
which Lay Foundation to Rorschach's Formal Schema through
its Systematization in Zulliger's Inkblot Series (Z-Test)


 Plates
 
AuthorsIIIIII

HegelThesisAntithesisSynthesis
PeirceFirstnessSecondnessThirdness
SpencerIncoherentIncoherentCoherent
 homogeneityheterogeneityheterogeneity
Renan (Claparede)SyncretismAnalysisSynthesis
Murphy (Lewin/Werner)GlobalityDifferentiationIntegration
BachelardBindUnbindRebind
Aulagnier (Freud)OriginaryPrimarySecondary
LacanRealImaginarySymbolic
Szondi (Schotte):ContactSex and LawEgo
 psychopathiesperversions/neurosespsychoses
 projection (p–)introject./negation (k+/–)inflation (p+)
FinkSpaceTimeMovement
Deese:strengthviolencepower
 similaralikesame
 piecespartsmembers
 quantityqualitymeasure
 BaseFoundationOrigin

ponse (Binder) to the shading of plate I, like “slag,” has this feature of being composed of pieces that don't differentiate themselves essentially neither from each other nor from the same homogeneous elementary ensemble (Kuhn, 1953/1977, p. 505); contrarily on pl. II the hetero-geneity of the stimulation by the different colors invites to express in a separate way the partial drives in action (Salomon, 1959b pp. 243-257, 1962 chap. III; cf. Murphy, 1947, p. 66); and the integration of the different details as the members of a complete human body thanks to a kinesthetic percept is what is expected in pl. III (Rorschach, 1921/1942, chap. II.5.b; Zulliger, 1948-54/1969, chap. 1; Dolto, 1961/1981, pp. 73-74).

Furthermore, that the material worked out by Zulliger and shaped by him into his three images has resulted so perfectly balanced that it has come to constitute inside science the equi-valent to a Work of Art, like a triptych which reveals through its equilibrated perceptual-formal symbolism the stages as well as the more important components in the development of that same human existence, can be demonstrated having recourse to the opinion of one of the most re-known specialists in the field:

If one wishes to be admitted to the presence of a work of art, one must, first of all, face it as a whole. What is it that comes across? What is the mood of the colors, the dynamics of the shapes? Before we identify any one element, the total composition makes a statement that we must not lose. We look for a theme, a key to which everything relates [compare with Bohm, 1959/1977, pp. 308-309 attitude #2].... Safely guided by the structure of the whole, we then try to recognize the principal features and explore their dominion over dependent details. Gradually, the entire wealth of the work reveals itself and falls into place, and as we perceive it correctly, it begins to engage all the powers of the mind with its message [italics added] (Arnheim, 1974, Introduction p. 8)

(compare also this quotation, as well as the following one, with Simon H., 1973, pp. 139-141); and still:

Why is balance an indispensable factor of aesthetic composition? One of the reasons, which is often overlooked in discussions of the subject, is that visually, just as physically, balance represents the state of distribution in which all elements have come to rest. In a balanced composition all factors of shape, direction, location, etc. are mutually deter-mined by each other in such a way that no change seems possible and the whole assumes the character of “necessity” in all its parts [italics added]; (Arnheim, 1951, p. 267)

and it is precisely this wager that Zulliger has accomplished with the specific placing of the locations, determinants, sequence, etc., of his plates, without willfully pursuing it but spon-taneously, like the true Rorschach artist that he was (cf. on this issue: Melon & Lekeuche, 1989, p. 80).

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Notes

* Director, American Rorschach Archives: EPS# Y-10241, Miami FL 33102-5556 U.S.A. (Ameroarchives@hotmail.com). This work was originally delivered at the Zulliger Workshop of the XIVth International Rorschach Congress (Lisboa, July 1993), to honor Hans Zulliger in his birth centenary (there is also a previous French version of this paper: Peralta, 1995a).

1. Due to a concern for conceptual coherence but also to insist on this ‘return to the source’ spirit, we have chosen to use – here as everywhere else – the scoring symbols of the Classical Swiss Tradition (abbrev. from German): Rorschach, 1921/1942, “Table of Symbols and Abbre-viations” (Introduction). In the case of this triad, it concerns the locations sequence (proto)type (so implying a certain temporal order) called “normal” by him (chap. II.6.a): whole, detail, and small (rare) detail responses, respectively.

2. See Note 1. In our opinion these schematic (formal) intuitions were essential in the unfolding of his work, proof being that this latter (response determinants, that are nothing but pictural categories: Rorschach, 1921/1942, chap. IV.15/16 and Table XVIII) triadic series was the guid-ing principle that dictated the for a long time remained very enigmatic presenting order of his inkblots (chap. I.1): ‘reading’ the plates from left to right, which makes us find anew in the test material as a whole a general symmetry which is the equivalent of the one present in each blot in particular (Schotte, 1963/1990, p. 35), we have first I-III respectively as the B plates (Rorschach, chap. II.5.b, exs.; Bohm, 1951/1958 p. 32, 1951/1972 chap. 4.A.I.2.b; Loosli-Usteri, 1958/1969, chap. III.B.3), then IV-VII as the predominantly F-suggesting (Rorschach, chap. III.1), finally VIII-X obviously as the Fb ones (Rorschach, chap. II.5.c, exs.; cf. Silberstein, 1991, pp. 50-51); let’s not forget that originally there were 15 (3?5) plates, and only due to a publisher’s demand was he forced to reduce their number first to 12 (3?4, no coincidence: Exner, 1999 p. 7, 2000 p. 8; Oberholzer, 1968, p. 506) until there was no alternative than to accept to restrict himself to the present 10! As Ellenberger (1954/1993, chap. III.D) has pointed out, this now spatial – rather than temporal – organizing principle he adopted from Jung and manifests itself everywhere in his work: in the left-right composition of Erlebnistypus described in chap. IV.4 (compare Schachtel, 1966, pp. 76-77), in the presentation order of the determinants in the psychograms of all of his cases in chap. V (cf. Oberholzer, p. 504), in his experience balance Tables in chap. VIII (from Table IX on, cf. Rorschach & Morgenthaler, 1919-21/1999, letter of 4/18/21 p. 44), and finally in the interpretive table – visually very symmetrical – of the posthumously published Oberholzer’s case (chap. VII.A.3) that Klopfer eventually popularized as the determinants bar-graph in his tabulation sheet.

3. Not only did he undergo his training analysis with Rorschach (Kuhn, in press, Pt. Ia) and learn the method from the man himself (Zulliger, 1948-54/1969, “Biographical remarks” pp. 3-7), but his works and influence amount to a “System” in Exner's sense pretty much comparable to the Rapaport-Schafer one (Zulliger-Salomon System: Peralta, 1995b).

4. Her results were by the way completely and independently replicated in America by Hemmen-dinger (1953). Curiously, as Bohm (1951/1972, chap. 15.II.1 Footnote 17) elaborating on Holt (1954, pp. 518-519, 531-534) points out, the existence of this three-stage developmental law has been independently established, rediscovered and reported many times since the XIXth century by several philosophers and psychologists in different countries, which is very eloquent concern-ing its universal validity: Spencer, Renan, Claparede, Lewin, Werner, Murphy, etc. (see Table 2 below). Despite the utmost importance of these findings for a systematic Rorschach theory (Holt, p. 503 point 3; Bohm, loc. cit., ref. to “evaluation” i.e. chap. 7.I, 1951/1958 pp. 139-141; Salo-mon, 1959a pp. 286-287, 1962 pp. 11-12, 13-14 – see next paragraph – ; Hemmendinger & Schultz, 1960/1977, pp. 83, 90 Footnote 6, 102, 103, 108) it is only now that the contributions of those few Rorschach researchers seem to have been developed to their full implications (comp. the present work with Leichtman's, 1988, 1996).

5. Who is not only “undoubtedly the best connoisseur and practitioner of the Szondi test today” [our translation] (Schotte, 1990, p. 154) but also one of the most eminent contemporary special-ists of the Rorschach: he serves himself of the former instrument to explore the latter with a sounder theoretical basis (Melon, 1975, 1976), making profit from Schotte's (op. cit., pp. 5-11) “drive circuits theory” which approaches from an advantageous genetic perspective Szondi’s profound analysis of the elementary psychoanalytical mechanisms of the Ego; one of the results commented upon orally in a Szondi Seminar at Louvain-la-Neuve (personal communication, 1984-1988) was precisely the forementioned Ego-attuned developmental sequence of Ror-schach's determinants: I= Hd, IIa= F / IIb= Fb, III= B. In other words, what Schotte’s “circuits” have represented for the Szondi has its exact counterpart in what Zulliger’s “circuit” represents for the Rorschach, “new conception of the schema which integrates a temporal dimension to a representation of things until now purely spatial” [our translation] (Melon & Lekeuche, 1989, p. 21; cf. Note 2 above). If in his Doctoral Dissertation Melon was searching “...in the ego vector (Sch) sort of a compass for exploring the Rorschach domains and elevate kind of a new geo-graphical chart” [our translation] (1976, p. III), we'll dare say that now that's already accom-plished matter! (See Table 1, cf. Note 6 below). Our own steps forward, obviously, owe a lot to our personal association with the Louvain School during the years indicated.

6. Our exposition is certainly simplified, in the sense that we have alluded only implicitly to the apperception of rare details Dd and to the pure formal determinant F, those fourth elements temporarily put aside but which by the way integrate also both into a last perceptanalytic unity: the one that makes possible and in fact initiates analysis (“objectivation”: Schachtel, 1966 p. 60 Footnote 9, 1959/1984 chap. 6; Dworetzki, 1939 pp. 262-263, 270 conclusion ‘a’, 275 and 288-298, 1939/1956 pp. 112, 119, 130-135 and 172; cf. the sequence of determinants introduced in Note 5 above) or, in more Szondian terms, the coming into play of the systolic function of the Ego (k+: Melon, 1975 p. 268, 1976 pp. 76, 68) in accordance with Schotte’s “circuit” theory (1990, pp. 168-169). The intermediate stage (where is faced the having issue, Szondi’s k axis in his Ego dialectics) is, as Freud clearly recognized, a double-faced one actually with two sub-stages dominated by opposing positions, as very ably demonstrate the perverted (to have the object, no matter what: k+; partial object which stands out by its pregnant form: Dd F) and the neurotic (forbidden to have it, to renounce: k–; repression that liberates the affect attached to it: D Fb) pathologies, being both concerned with the same problem but regarding its solution the latter becomes “the negative” of the former (1905/1940, Essay 1 Pt. 4); there is of course also the more paramount diastolic problem, as Shakespeare’s Hamlet very well knows, of “to be or not to be” (Szondi’s p+ / p– axis) with which psychotics (whose productive paranoid prototype de-monstrates a particular inclination for the B: Rorschach, 1921/1942, chap. IV.4 and Table X; Schachtel, 1950, p. 76) and psychopaths (whom according to Binder, the same to have intro-duced the Hd that often characterize them, are nothing but thymopaths: 1932/1979, pp. 34, 70-98, 118-122; Schotte, op. cit., pp. 10, 208 Footnote 33) are respectively concerned. All these problems are elaborated in the most illuminating way by Szondi (1956) and Schotte (op. cit.; see Table 2). The complete perceptanalytic system would be then represented in the from now on definitive schema: I= G Hd, IIa= Dd F / IIb= D Fb, III= G B.

© 1996-2002 Leo Berlips, JP Berlips & Jens Berlips, Slavick Shibayev