Butterflies

"Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach."

--Watchmen

So begins a journal entry by Rorschach, the psychotic vigilante from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' classic graphic novel. If, however, you ever take an actual Rorschach test, you should probably refrain from "seeing" anything of the sort. Even Rorschach himself (the character, not the Swiss psychologist who developed the test) falls back on "a pretty butterfly" when asked what he sees.

But in case you are ever administered an inkblot test, and you want to prepare, all you need to do is check out Wikipedia. In the "Rorschach Test" entry, you can skip right to the bottom and see all ten of the standard inkblots, along with their conventional interpretations.

Psychiatrists are outraged. It's not so much that the information is public--the U.S. copyright on the materials expired long ago; they feel, however, that such prominent placement in Wikipedia, the lazy student's first resource, is a potential disaster. The concern is that, if people memorize the ink blots, they will not give honest "gut" reactions on an actual test. They will try to appear "normal," even at the if it means they receive no true diagnostic insight. Speaking as someone to whom every inkblot resembles either a butterfly or two giraffes fucking, the Solipsist can sympathize with the temptation to cheat.

You're probably wondering, "Why can't psychiatrists just make new inkblots?" They can. The drawback is that the current set of splotches, because they have been in use for so long, have been "normed, i.e., they are more diagnostically "sound." In other words, people have been looking at this:

for nearly a hundred years, and many of the "sane" people have apparently seen a bearskin rug. So if new blots are developed, psychiatrists will need to wait and gather copious amounts of data in order to determine what a "standard" (i.e., "normal") response is. (By the way, what does it say about YNSHC that this blot reminds him of a violin? Does that mean he's nuts? Frankly, we think the instant recognition of a flayed animal suggests more sociopathic tendencies--but what do we know?)

Look, the Solipsist is not a psychiatrist, but he always thought the Rorschach test wasn't really about "what" the person saw anyway. If you ask someone "What do you see?" the sanest response would seem to be, "An inkblot." Instead, we think doctors pay attention to how the question is answered. For example, we know that one "trick" to the exam is that you're never supposed to say "It's a butterfly" or "It's a frog"; you're supposed to say "It looks like a butterfly" or "It reminds me of a frog." The phrasing is what's significant, not the answer itself.

We assume that most psychiatrists--who are, overall, fairly intelligent people--are well aware that the "answers" are out there and have been for a long time. If we were examining someone, we would pay attention, for example, to the speed and confidence with which the respondent gives an interpretation: A speedy, confident answer might indicate that the person has, in fact, prepared for the exam.

And wouldn't that fact be of diagnostic value in and of itself?