When I began graduate training in personality assessment, my initial reac-
tion to the Rorschach was, “How can you understand personality
... [Show More] with
inkblots?” My earliest skepticism disappeared, yet I remained wary of an
instrument that seemed so difficult to learn and master. As my training
continued, I encountered clinical supervisors who were masters of Ror-
schach scoring and interpretation. It was during my clinical internship at
the State University of New York Health Science Center (now Upstate
Medical University) in Syracuse, New York that I began to appreciate the
brilliance of the Rorschach and what it offered in understanding human
personality and its problems. Little did I think as a young student that I
would teach, research, and write about the Rorschach.
Contrary to my early ambivalence with the Rorschach, I entered gradu-
ate school very interested in studying personality disorders. Perhaps this
reflected my ongoing interest in how an individual’s biological and experi-
ential bases contributed to his current state of being, as well as my interest
in how, by understanding these factors, a clinical psychologist could lead
the individual toward new ways of being that yielded greater satisfaction
in one's relationships and work. My earliest research on the personality dis-
orders was conducted under the supervision of Dr. Mark Fine at the Uni-
versity of Dayton. I found certain similarities in the DSM-III-R category of
self-defeating personality disorder and dependent personality disorder.
That is, both disorders involved high external loci of control, along with
putting oneself in a position to be influenced by another person, apparently
with little concern about the high degree of influence that other person
wields. While my thesis evaluated clinicians’ ability to differentially diag-
nose these two disorders, I wondered what types of dynamics and motives
would shape an individual’s personality in such a way: Low self-esteem
and self-regard? Fear of others that could only be expressed through exces-
sive submission? Might such personality types be motivated and gratified
by such submission, ergo suffering? [Show Less]