Few books illuminate a domain of clinical inquiry as superbly as Psychoanalytic Perspectives on the Rorschach. Paul Lerner has written a comprehensive text that offers a richly detailed, multidimensional vision of the Rorschach as the ideal medium for operationalizing, testing, and in some instances transforming contemporary clinical theory.

For psychoanalytic therapists, the book provides a fascinating overview of how the coevolution of psychoanalytic theory and Rorschach technique has created new possibilities for conceptual integration. Lerner explores recent advances in our ability to operationalize such clinical concepts as splitting, dissociation, and false-self organization. He then reviews how these advances have been applied to research into psychic organization across different diagnostic categories, including anorexia and bulimia, aggressive and psychopathic personality, and schizotypal disorders. Finally, Lerner shows how the resulting data offer a unique vantage point from which to clarify such critical topics as developmental object relations and the structure of primitive experience.

Rorschach scholars will appreciate Lerner's informed discussions of theorists as diverse as Rapaport and Schachtel, Exner and Mayman, Schafer and Leichtman. Rorschach students, for their part, will find the book an unusually lucid introduction to test administration, scoring, interpretation, and report writing. Even here, however, Lerner's breadth and originality are apparent, for his exposition of these testing fundamentals incorporates fresh discussions of the nature of the Rorschach test, the impact of the patient-examiner relationship, and the value of the test in treatment planning. Timely, definitive, and uniquely integrative, Psychoanalytic Perspectives on the Rorschach will be valued by students, clinicians, and researchers well into the next century.

About the Author

Paul M. Lerner, Ed.D., psychoanalyst and psychologist, is an award-winning Rorschach researcher and past President of the Society for Personality Assessment. The author of Psychoanalytic Theory and the Rorschach (Analytic Press, 1991), he is currently in private practice in Camden, ME.

Reviews

"In this volume, Paul Lerner summarizes, consolidates, and expands upon his previous contributions to Rorschach psychology. Once again we are in the presence of a master clinician and diagnostician. Psychoanalytic Perspectives on the Rorschach is an encyclopedic work that will define the field of Rorschach inquiry for many years to come. It is a book to study and to cherish, both for its intellectual rigor and clinical wisdom."

- James E. Gorney, Ph.D.

"If there is a contemporary godfather of psychoanalysis and the Rorschach, it is Paul Lerner. In this exemplary book, Dr. Lerner makes us a scholarly offering we cannot refuse."

- J. Reid Meloy, Ph.D., Author, The Mark of Cain (Analytic Press, 2001)

"Psychoanalytic Perspectives on the Rorschach virtually glows, not only because of the illuminating vignettes and short case examples, but also because Rorschach data are translated into experientially based statements. It is a wonderful introduction to modern clinical assessment theory that reflects important observations in psychoanalytic theory and describes those changes as they gain expression in the interpretive process. In Rorschach psychology this book is a 'W+.' In the terminology of baseball - of which Lerner is a dedicated enthusiast - it is a grand slam."

- Leonard Handler, Ph.D., University of Tennessee

Book Information
ISBN 9781138005303
Author Paul M. Lerner
Format Paperback
Page Count 510
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 680g