The International Journal of Int J Psychoanal (2013) 94:955–957
doi: 10.1111/1745-8315.12072
Rorschach interpretation of Freud's “Wolf Man” at age 69
Introductory note This Rorschach test seems to have been well administered in the manner originally laid out by Herman Rorschach (1942). However, from the vantage point of what modern Rorschach administration and recording requires (Schafer, 1954), this document lacks essential features. The recording is not verbatim; it includes neither behavioral notes nor the verbal formulations and transactions between tester and subject. Also, there is no location sheet that outlines responses clearly, no account of the patient’s understanding of the purpose of the testing, and no context provided by the results of a battery of other tests. Nevertheless, the existing record seems to allow a significant amount of reasonably confident interpretation. An additional question must be raised about my interpretation: has my familiarity with the case of the Wolf Man through my studies and teaching guided my analysis of this Rorschach record to such an extent that it could be thought that I was simply finding what I was looking for? The question becomes only slightly less pressing if I declare that with an age-appropriate, somewhat spotty memory and with my not having studied, taught or kept up with ‘the latest’ on the Wolf Man, I consciously recall only scraps of what was once thoroughly familiar; yet I do know I would instantly recognize the details were they presented to me. Offsetting the implications of these considerations is the fact that the patterning of content and formal features of his Rorschach responses point in a very obvious way to the realm of interpretations that includes the very ones I put forward. So much is this so that I felt compelled in drafting the following report (see below) to question whether, to some extent, the subject was responding in a contrived, preconceived manner. Also, the interpretations I developed are not altogether in the direction that I, knowing that the Wolf Man was the subject, had expected: there were surprises.
Interpretation This man’s functioning is characterized by fragility of integration and erratic reality testing when having to deal with emotionally charged situations. Especially challenging are situations that require him to assume responsibility, show initiative or confront emotional demands. He seems to try to get by in everyday situations by adopting a veneer of conventional conduct that implements his careful avoidance of affective involvement with others. He guides himself with the help of a watchful, guarded sensitivity to the nuances of behavior and situations. Copyright © 2013 Institute of Psychoanalysis Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA on behalf of the Institute of Psychoanalysis
956
R. Schafer
As a further means of sparing himself from emotional involvement, he resorts to the role of a person who is not a self-directed agent of his own life, rather more a mindless person who gets his initiative and direction from others. This role frees him from the normal emotional stress of assuming responsibility and purpose and of being interested in others and emotionally engaged with them. It is suggested that he funnels his aggressive tendencies into an oppositional stance, as in contrariness, but then must cover up its expression. Although this pattern is just what one might expect from an obsessional person, the more basic problem is probably a paranoid need to remain hidden and detached. Emotion impacts him as a disintegrative force that drives him toward regressive positions. In the regressed mode, he can lapse into excited paranoid psychotic thinking. His guardedness does not protect him adequately. He then devotes much of his keen attentiveness to tying things together, possibly searching for and finding threatening connections in what is going on around him or behind his back. Under stress, this linking can get quite arbitrary and primitive in content. Taken together, these features indicate his being predisposed to paranoid reactivity. The subject’s looking to others for support and guidance might suggest that he is grounded in an oral-receptive orientation to others, but the test results suggest otherwise; namely, his unconscious role is that of the castrated, passive figure exposed to vaginal and anal penetration by outside forces and figures. Unable to accept this sexual position but apparently drawn to its dynamic content, he resorts to paranoid projection into others of ‘nasty’ homosexual goings on. At the same time, he seems to retain fantasies about being invaded or penetrated, most of all penetrated anally. Unconsciously, his passive, mindless, receptive life posture may well be enjoyed in all the defensive and gratifying terms emphasized above. That is to say, his role shields him, gratifies him through his erotized passive transactions, and gives him a measure of oppositional control of situations. His responses suggest that, in this overdetermined way, he tends to hide his assets and play the headless role. If this impression is correct, it raises a question for the Rorschach interpreter: to what extent is the subject carrying into his test-taking this posture of mindlessness and so seeking to play the part that he believes is expected of him, regressive tendencies and all? My skeptical question is reinforced by the ease with which bizarre, sexually regressive responsiveness enters consciousness without obvious anxiety or distress. He shows no sense of dealing with breakthroughs or crumbling walls of defense. He just rushes along mixing the conventional, the loosely connected and the regressed. It is as though he is blandly familiar with and prepared to deliver his own severe psychic disturbance. (This set of considerations makes it plain why it is important to know what he understood to be the reason for his being tested: was it just because there was an opportunity to get him to take a Rorschach to see what more might come to light about this ‘famous’ patient? I lean toward this view.) Nevertheless, I have little doubt that his role-playing is an extrapolation from borderline paranoid pathology. In my clinical experience, this exploitaInt J Psychoanal (2013) 94
Copyright © 2013 Institute of Psychoanalysis
Rorschach interpretation
957
tion of the real is not rare in borderline cases: it is likely to be a form of antagonistic control used not only for defense but also to oppose and disempower the analyst and his/her insights under a cover of frictionless acceptance. While the anality, the oppositional tendency, and the struggle against emotion are aspects of an obsessional predisposition, this Rorschach record in hand has no indications that organized neurotic obsessionality is now in play! Diagnostic conclusion: borderline psychosis, paranoid type.
Addendum Not having available the results of a battery of tests, I am unable to use this Rorschach record to estimate with confidence the influence on his functioning and fantasies of his facing, at the age of 69, the approach of old age, decline, and loss of control. Roy Schafer 455 North End Avenue, #1211 New York, NY, 10282, USA E-mail: [email protected]
References Rorschach H (1942). Psychodiagnostics, Kronenberg B, Lemkau P, translators. 3rd edn. Berne: Hans Huber. Schafer R (1954). Psychoanalytic interpretation in Rorschach testing: Theory and application. New York, NY: Grune & Stratton.
Copyright © 2013 Institute of Psychoanalysis
Int J Psychoanal (2013) 94
doi: 10.1111/1745-8315.12072
Rorschach interpretation of Freud's “Wolf Man” at age 69
Introductory note This Rorschach test seems to have been well administered in the manner originally laid out by Herman Rorschach (1942). However, from the vantage point of what modern Rorschach administration and recording requires (Schafer, 1954), this document lacks essential features. The recording is not verbatim; it includes neither behavioral notes nor the verbal formulations and transactions between tester and subject. Also, there is no location sheet that outlines responses clearly, no account of the patient’s understanding of the purpose of the testing, and no context provided by the results of a battery of other tests. Nevertheless, the existing record seems to allow a significant amount of reasonably confident interpretation. An additional question must be raised about my interpretation: has my familiarity with the case of the Wolf Man through my studies and teaching guided my analysis of this Rorschach record to such an extent that it could be thought that I was simply finding what I was looking for? The question becomes only slightly less pressing if I declare that with an age-appropriate, somewhat spotty memory and with my not having studied, taught or kept up with ‘the latest’ on the Wolf Man, I consciously recall only scraps of what was once thoroughly familiar; yet I do know I would instantly recognize the details were they presented to me. Offsetting the implications of these considerations is the fact that the patterning of content and formal features of his Rorschach responses point in a very obvious way to the realm of interpretations that includes the very ones I put forward. So much is this so that I felt compelled in drafting the following report (see below) to question whether, to some extent, the subject was responding in a contrived, preconceived manner. Also, the interpretations I developed are not altogether in the direction that I, knowing that the Wolf Man was the subject, had expected: there were surprises.
Interpretation This man’s functioning is characterized by fragility of integration and erratic reality testing when having to deal with emotionally charged situations. Especially challenging are situations that require him to assume responsibility, show initiative or confront emotional demands. He seems to try to get by in everyday situations by adopting a veneer of conventional conduct that implements his careful avoidance of affective involvement with others. He guides himself with the help of a watchful, guarded sensitivity to the nuances of behavior and situations. Copyright © 2013 Institute of Psychoanalysis Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA on behalf of the Institute of Psychoanalysis
956
R. Schafer
As a further means of sparing himself from emotional involvement, he resorts to the role of a person who is not a self-directed agent of his own life, rather more a mindless person who gets his initiative and direction from others. This role frees him from the normal emotional stress of assuming responsibility and purpose and of being interested in others and emotionally engaged with them. It is suggested that he funnels his aggressive tendencies into an oppositional stance, as in contrariness, but then must cover up its expression. Although this pattern is just what one might expect from an obsessional person, the more basic problem is probably a paranoid need to remain hidden and detached. Emotion impacts him as a disintegrative force that drives him toward regressive positions. In the regressed mode, he can lapse into excited paranoid psychotic thinking. His guardedness does not protect him adequately. He then devotes much of his keen attentiveness to tying things together, possibly searching for and finding threatening connections in what is going on around him or behind his back. Under stress, this linking can get quite arbitrary and primitive in content. Taken together, these features indicate his being predisposed to paranoid reactivity. The subject’s looking to others for support and guidance might suggest that he is grounded in an oral-receptive orientation to others, but the test results suggest otherwise; namely, his unconscious role is that of the castrated, passive figure exposed to vaginal and anal penetration by outside forces and figures. Unable to accept this sexual position but apparently drawn to its dynamic content, he resorts to paranoid projection into others of ‘nasty’ homosexual goings on. At the same time, he seems to retain fantasies about being invaded or penetrated, most of all penetrated anally. Unconsciously, his passive, mindless, receptive life posture may well be enjoyed in all the defensive and gratifying terms emphasized above. That is to say, his role shields him, gratifies him through his erotized passive transactions, and gives him a measure of oppositional control of situations. His responses suggest that, in this overdetermined way, he tends to hide his assets and play the headless role. If this impression is correct, it raises a question for the Rorschach interpreter: to what extent is the subject carrying into his test-taking this posture of mindlessness and so seeking to play the part that he believes is expected of him, regressive tendencies and all? My skeptical question is reinforced by the ease with which bizarre, sexually regressive responsiveness enters consciousness without obvious anxiety or distress. He shows no sense of dealing with breakthroughs or crumbling walls of defense. He just rushes along mixing the conventional, the loosely connected and the regressed. It is as though he is blandly familiar with and prepared to deliver his own severe psychic disturbance. (This set of considerations makes it plain why it is important to know what he understood to be the reason for his being tested: was it just because there was an opportunity to get him to take a Rorschach to see what more might come to light about this ‘famous’ patient? I lean toward this view.) Nevertheless, I have little doubt that his role-playing is an extrapolation from borderline paranoid pathology. In my clinical experience, this exploitaInt J Psychoanal (2013) 94
Copyright © 2013 Institute of Psychoanalysis
Rorschach interpretation
957
tion of the real is not rare in borderline cases: it is likely to be a form of antagonistic control used not only for defense but also to oppose and disempower the analyst and his/her insights under a cover of frictionless acceptance. While the anality, the oppositional tendency, and the struggle against emotion are aspects of an obsessional predisposition, this Rorschach record in hand has no indications that organized neurotic obsessionality is now in play! Diagnostic conclusion: borderline psychosis, paranoid type.
Addendum Not having available the results of a battery of tests, I am unable to use this Rorschach record to estimate with confidence the influence on his functioning and fantasies of his facing, at the age of 69, the approach of old age, decline, and loss of control. Roy Schafer 455 North End Avenue, #1211 New York, NY, 10282, USA E-mail: [email protected]
References Rorschach H (1942). Psychodiagnostics, Kronenberg B, Lemkau P, translators. 3rd edn. Berne: Hans Huber. Schafer R (1954). Psychoanalytic interpretation in Rorschach testing: Theory and application. New York, NY: Grune & Stratton.
Copyright © 2013 Institute of Psychoanalysis
Int J Psychoanal (2013) 94
