Thematic Apperception Test

See also: TAT

The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) is a projective test used by the psychologists. According to Nina Rausch de Traubenberg “the projective methods are a place where the theory is incarnated in a speech. ”

The principle is to show boards , figurative drawings representing of the social situations varied and ambiguous, and to require about telling a history starting from these boards, which is called making.

After making, several methods of interpretation can be used. For a psychological Examen one generally makes pass the Test of Rorschach and the TAT which one analyzes each production to arrive at a synthesis.

Rorschach is thus generally used as tool diagnosis with the TAT for the psychological examination which is concluded by a report/ratio from analyzes with conclusion. The examination psychology is used for the diagnosis, with the indication of a treatment: psychoanalytical psychotherapy to support in particular, or the work of expertises (justice, insurances, etc). Examined context must be duly informed and of it for what the examination will be used. To use the projective methods in contexts vague or to satisfy the curiosity of one or others is not deontologic.

However, to define the TAT as a simple tool diagnosis would be reducing, because it would make it possible to include/understand, beyond the structure of the subject, its dynamics own.

History

Henri Murray, doctor and biochemist, works out the TAT in 1935. It is based on a theory of the duality of the needs for the individual.

Then, will be adopted a psychoanalytical step . The Egopsychology worked the interpretation of this test, while being centered on the Mechanism of defense: it is a question of questioning the response like defense vis-a-vis one lived emotional delicate. Other psychoanalytical schools will interpret it by considering the opposition between manifest content and Latent content: the answer conceals elements making it possible to see problems Inconscient there are.
In 1938, Murray will use the results of them to nourish its theory of the personality in its Exploration book of the personality. It is into 1943 that was published, always by Murray the final form of the test with its Handbook of application.

According to this approach, the TAT will reveal in particular the problems œdipienne. Two other points remain of importance: the mourning of the object (related to the Depressive position) and the Narcissism.

The administration of the TAT by Murray, takes place twice. Ten different images are presented to the subject each time. Certain image are proposed on all the subjects, whereas others specifically concern the adults, the children, the men (and boys) or the women (and girls). The image are consisted drawings, photographs or reproductions of engraving: the majority of these boards are figurative and put in image one or more characters.

The instruction suggested by Murray invites the subject to tell a history for each board. It is recommended to psychologist to take care that history has beginning and end, that is specified what occurs on the image, which occurred front, which will be the outcome but also which are the feelings tested by the characters. While supporting the procedure by his questions, the psychologist abstains from any suggestion or information. For the second series, Murray recommends more freedom on the subject, guest then to let itself carry by its imagination by inventing fictions similar to a myth, a dream, a tale, etc For board 16 (white board), Murray requires about imagining an engraving then to invent a corresponding history. After the making of each series, the psychologist proceeds to an investigation to know from where the subject drew the idea of its history but of course the memories personal, the dreams, imaginations more or less constitutive of the subject are regarded as most significant. Interpretation according to Murray implies the assumption according to which the stories invented by the subject are in fact of the disguised evocations of its control in the real life. The essential problem of the TAT (but also of the other projective tests) is posed there. Murray wonders whether accounts TAT constitute an exact reproduction of the real conduits of the subjects, the psychoanalysts question themselves and are opposed as for the reality of the psychic events evoked in the cure. Murray distinguishes the formal analysis and analyzes of contents of the protocol. The formal analysis studies the organization, the style, the richness of the formulations, with the objectives to obtain information on intellectual qualities of the subject. The analysis of contents is articulated around five points:

- Motivation, factors internal and general features of the hero; - Forces of the entourage exerting an influence on the hero; - Course and outcome of the history; - Analysis of the topics; - Interests and feelings. Once finished the formal analysis and the analysis of contents, the psychologist carries out the summary of the results.

Orientation of Vica Shentoub

It is into 1953 that Vica Shentoub takes again the test of Henri Murray to give him a psychoanalytical second reading. Using a team of researcher of the institute of psychology in Paris, it collects and analyzes during several years of innumerable protocols. This work will reveal a corpus of answers known as banal but especially the fact that the contents of the answers do not have really discriminating and/or diagnostic values. Most important style account, the processes used is actually the , the manner of even answering the instruction and the stimuli. It is a true inversion compared to the prospect for Murray. In this new orientation, Vica Shentoub will recognize the influence of the American psychoanalyst Roy Schafer. This one had reconsidered the test of Rorschach by proposing a new psychoanalytical shoring. Its basic idea, although then at least formalized, was to listen to the answers of the subject like a psychoanalyst listens to the speech of a patient. Without question, the influence of Daniel Lagache was quite as determining, in particular to go beyond the contributions of the Ego Psychology.

Thus, gradually, Vica Shentoub and its collaborator (E) S, particularly Rosine Debray in the years 1970, build a grid or rather a mode of reading of the protocols original and unceasingly in evolution. The fundamental points were to distinguish:

  • between a manifest content and a latent content,

  • to postulate for each board of the variations around the problems oedipienne,
  • to locate the processes of defense and release to work in the construction of the account,
  • to assign the configurations of these processes to the variations of operations and structures of the personality.

The psychic operation of the subject is finally analyzed as it is a succession of oscillations between a pole of control (to tell a history) and a pole of carelessness (to imagine this history). The processes of defenses or release testify to these oscillations requested partly by the differential between latent contents and manifest contents. On the technical plan, Shentoub will modify the conditions of making of Murray as well as the use of the material: it increases the number of boards from 31 to 18 and moreover, considers that making must be done in a meeting and without investigation.

Description of the boards selected by Vica Shentoub

In the beginning, Murray had used marks behind the boards. The team of V. Shentoub preserved them, even if they lost any significance:

  • B : For Servant boy (boy from 7 to 14 years)

  • G : For Girl (young girl from 7 to 14 years)
  • F : For adult woman
  • M : For Male (adult man)

Quotation

The principle of quotation is to determine the mechanisms of defense used by the subject. The first sheet of examination, making it possible to dimension the answers to the test, was elaborate in 1968 by Vica Shentoub. In 1978, Debray there assistant factual proceeded . Then, Scarf, in 1981, considers some proceeded narcissistic . In 1998 and 2000 appear a new category: the investment of the limits .

Lastly, in 2001, Chabert reorganized the sheet of examination in four categories:

Series has (Proceeded rigid)

It is a series which dimensions mechanisms of defense of the nevrotic type including a subcategory of obsessional processes .

Series B (Proceeded unstable)

It is a series which also dimensions the nevrotic mechanisms of defense, including a subcategory of hysterical processes .

Series C (Avoidance of the conflict)

Dimension the mechanisms of avoidances, including five pennies series:

1/ Series CP from item the 1 to 6 Dimension the mechanisms of defense of the phobic type.

2/ Series CN from item the 7 to 16 Return to the narcissistic methods.

3/ Series CM from item the 17 to 19 Return to the mechanisms of the maniac type, in the direction of the anti-depressive fight of Melanie Klein.

4/ Series DC from item the 20 to 24 Dimension the conduits acted, i.e. which relates to the behavior of the subject during making.

5/ Series CF from item the 25 to 29 Return to poverty in the fantasmatic expression.

Series E (Emergence of primary processes)

See also: Primary process

Dimension the mechanisms associated with the primary process, including four pennies series:

1/ Item E1 with E6 Return to the failures in the perceptive conduits.

2/ Item E7 with E10 Return to the disturbances related to the phantasm.

3/ Item E11 with E16 Return to the hoop nets related on the identity and the object-relationship.

4/ Item E17 with E20 Return to the disorganization of the thought and speech (more logic of communication).

Children Apperception Test (CAT)

This test is an alternative of the TAT bound for the children (< 7/8 years). It has like principal difference the type in figures used. Those are of animal type. The reason is that the young children have a great capacity to project themselves on those.

Criticisms and limits of the TAT

From a psychometric point of view, this psychological test, although very widespread, has several methodological weaknesses:

  • There does not exist standardized method of administration.

  • Few psychologists use the whole of the images standards (normally 20 on the 30 available ones).
  • There does not exist standardized objective method of quotation of the answers (not of quantified quotations allowing a representation). The clinician thus depends on his subjective standards based on his personal track records, which makes it possible to discuss the scientificity of this test.

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