Recently, I read a newspaper article about the Rorschach test. That’s where a psychologist asks his or her patient to look a series of ink blobs on white sheets of paper and express what they mean to the patient.
The patient may say something like, “It looks like you spilled some ink on your prescription pad.”
This is probably not the answer the psychologist is looking for. A psychologist probably would be happier to hear something like, “I see a pirate with a wooden leg about to slit someone’s throat.”
He then might say the patient’s reaction could indicate a tendency toward violence.
The Rorschach test is a real psychological tool. It was introduced in 1921 by Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach and attained its peak popularity in the 1960s. It is used to assess cognition and personality and in the diagnosis of other conditions. The symmetrical blobs are made by spilling some ink on one half of a piece of paper, then folding over and unfolding the other half.
But a joke that has circulated for years reveals the humor many see in the idea of diagnosing psychological conditions by looking at blobs of ink on a folded piece of paper:
A patient is being questioned by a psychologist who is fond of the Rorschach test. The patient looks at the ink blob, turning it left, right and finally upside down.
“What do you see?” asks the psychiatrist.
“Sex,” says the patient.
They run through all of the blobs and each time the patient answers the same: “Sex.”
“Apparently, you have a fixation on sex,” says the psychiatrist.
“Don’t give me a bad time,” replies the patient, “You’re the one who showed me all those dirty pictures.”
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