"Psychological Analysis" Legit or no?

Post Reply New Topic

I went to a psychiatrist and they had me go get a psychological analysis. Has anyone ever done one of these? I'm posting this here because it has to do with psychology but not really autism... And I haven't told my psychologist my suspicions yet.

Anyways... the test included:

The Inkblot Test supposedly scored according to statistics,
replicating/drawing a bunch of dots / shapes,
and a house/tree/person test.

In the first I often couldn't think of anything and if I did it was from a very small part of the inkblot. I was looking up how they scored them and it seemed like really complex nonsense.

I think I replicated all the shapes correctly, but then again, I can draw pretty well.

I drew a house, must have been 2 inches in height/length on the page. It had a window and a door and was slightly 3d. I drew a tree with some leaves but not many, and I drew a person under the rain (this is what I was told to draw). He had an umbrella but I forgot the rain. I was then asked what type of tree it was. I don't know types of trees. What I thought the tree's purpose was? And I was like... pause... home for a bird? How old was the man? 20-ish. His name? Couldn't answer. What does he work as? Couldn't think of anything.

I'm starting to think it was total BS... What's your opinion? If you've done some of these, what were your results?

If it was "psychoanalysis" (or if "psychological analysis" was used as a euphemism for "psychoanalysis") then that's Freudianism, and IMHO useless crap, i.e. "Oedipus complex" "trio of psychopathies" "penis envy" etc.

But neuropsychological testing (which is something different), can include being asked to replicate drawings, so I'm not sure from your description which you had done. (Neuropsych testing is basically "IQ testing.") The ink blots make it sound like it was psychoanalysis, though.

Not sure about the other testing, but I had to do the house/tree/person test for my Asperger's assessment. The psychologist asked the same questions. Replicating drawings is also sort of similar to some of the visual testing I had to complete, as well.

I'm not sure. I translated it from my language and I was confused about the exact term anyways.



Did you get your results yet? Do they tell you what they saw from what you drew? I was supposed to get my results to these tests today, but my psychologist had some sort of emergency.

Inkblot test=proven worthless. I think this in itself is a good reason to go elsewhere.

*agree*

If you want to become a psychiatrist you have to be psychologically sound yourself? Well there go any ideas I had... XD

That's inaccurate. The Rorschach is actually a reliable and valid test:

http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1989-14153-001

It does require a lot of training to administer properly, but if they have the right training it's just as valid as the MMPI (which is one of the better personality tests out there).

There are plenty of studies that say Rorschach isn't all that hot. Since some aspects of the responses (complexity, commonness, etc.) can be elicited at least as well with a mere interview without mumbo-jumbo, there isn't much reason to not bypass it.

I've gotten to mistrust meta-analysis more every time I see it.

The need for training is silliness. How much training does it take to tally up answers on an MMPI.

The only reason the Rorschach is still around is that people who learned it before it was debunked are still alive. When the last person who didn't know better by the time he graduated dies, the Rorschach will disappear, as did phrenology and Freud.

I doubt my response or what you might respond to this with will change any minds. We'll have to agree to disagree.

More than you think. The MMPI has 400 questions, with a scoring scheme designed to be hard to guess (to reduce faking). They even have special scales to detect answer styles likely to reflect various kinds of faking. And once you get the scale scores, interpreting them is tricky as well. There are a pile of scales that can mean different things depending on the scores on other scales.

Plus, the scoring scheme of the MMPI is kept secret (again, to prevent faking) so part of the training is as a hoop to jump through so they'll trust you with the scoring. (They're not the only one - the Myers Briggs is also secret, which is why the online Myers Briggs are pretty much always fake.)

The MMPI was designed and tested on college students. Minorities are more likely to score in the abnormal zone.

One of the questions asks if you would sneak into a theatre, and it's a question to see if you are honest. Because I do not like theatres I said no. This implies that I was lying based on the assumption that everyone will take something for themselves if freely available.

All in all, it's BS.

One question means nothing. If you answered most of them in a certain way, the probability is that you're more likely to be lying than weird. But just one or two answered in that direction means nothing.