Google has celebrated the 129th birthday of Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach with a doodle showing his famous inkblot test.

The black and white doodle features a cartoon of the psychoanalyst taking notes as disembodied hands hover holding a card displaying an inkblot.

Different inkblots can be seen by clicking on the card. They include some spoofs - including a pair of gnomes, a pair of T-Rex-like dinosaurs and a butterfly hovering above a cat's face.

Users are prompted to share their interpretation of the inkblots on social media, including Facebook and Twitter.

Rorschach was born on 8 November 1884 in Zurich, Switzerland and developed his famous test in 1921. It comprises 10 inkblot images, which patients must look at and describe what they see.

In some cases, focusing on tiny details around the edges of the images is seen as evidence of obsessive behaviour.

After years of conducting the inkblot test on hospital patients, Rorschach wrote a book called Psychodiagnostik that describes how it could be an effective tool in psychoanalysis.

He died less than a year later, aged just 37, after a ruptured appendix led to peritonitis.

Advocates of the Rorschach test say it can reveal underlying mental issues that patients themselves may not be aware of, but critics dismiss it as out-of-date and it is rarely used in the UK.

0 comments Blogger 0 Facebook

Post a Comment

 
Word News © 2013. All Rights Reserved. Powered by Blogger Thanks to curly hairstyles
Top