Defense Date

4-10-2026

Graduation Date

Summer 8-7-2026

Availability

Immediate Access

Submission Type

dissertation

Degree Name

PhD

Department

Clinical Psychology

School

McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts

Committee Chair

Elizabeth Nickrenz

Committee Member

Patrick McElfresh

Committee Member

Jessie Goicoechea

Keywords

Rorschach, R-PAS, Culture, Constructivist Grounded Theory, Situational Analysis, Autoethnography, Singapore, Psychological Assessment, Critical Qualitative Methodology, Mixed Qualitative Method

Abstract

Contemporary research on the Rorschach and culture is striking for the latter’s disappearance as a variable of significance (Meyer et al., 2015; Meyer et al., 2007; Mihura et al., 2013; Viglione & Hilsenroth, 2001). This erasure is chronicled and reproduced in the narratives of universal objectivity, of extensive international meta-analyses, of replications, of standardized norms (Ritzler, 2004; Smith et al., 2018; Smith et al., 2020; Weiner, 2004). A different story emerges, however, when we ask, how has culture disappeared? The proposed study is a multimethod qualitative analysis of Singaporean responses to the Rorschach, aimed at generating sensitive yet critical discourses of culture and the assessment situation. This study aims to develop a nuanced understanding of how culture can affect the administration, scoring procedures, clinical utility of assessment, and the clinical relevance of scores of the Rorschach. Utilizing a critical qualitative framework (Levitt et al., 2021), constructivist grounded theory, situational analysis, and autoethnography are embedded into the Rorschach administration, scoring, and follow-up interviews of Singaporean participants. Between the qualitative methods utilized are different ontologies and epistemologies whose layered analyses aim to provide a depthful perspective of culture and the Rorschach. Constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014) iterates to an emergence of social processes, autoethnography (Hughes & Pennington, 2017) deciphers the assessor’s positionality as code for broader cultural insights, and situational analysis (Clarke et al., 2022) transparentizes hidden and marginal elements. I synthesize the various qualitative findings with significant trends from participants’ Rorschach to construct new perspectives and deeper insights into their meanings. I hope to demonstrate that the Rorschach is not a landscape of thoroughly explicated protocols, scoring, and measurements, but rather a situational field replete with dense jungles of reflexivity, social action or processes, and relational discourses.

Language

English

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