TEMPERAMENT, TCI AND RORSCHACH

Abstract

The research about personality characteristics produces interesting inferences about pathogenetic, diagnostic, therapeutic and prognostic issues of many mental disorders. The Rorschach test is one of the most useful and well known instrument for the study of personality characteristics, nevertheless its use in research has declined after the diffusion of personality inventories. One of these is the Cloninger’s Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) which explores four temperament and three character dimensions. The aim of this study is to explore whether the two instruments can display a certain degree of consistence when test
ing temperament and what psychodynamic in-depth knowledge of TCI traits may derive from its correlation to Rorschach findings. A sample of subjects affected by different mental disorders was tested with both instruments and each siglature of Rorschach test was correlated with dimensions and facets of TCI. The results were rather surprising. Even if the theoretical viewpoint of the two instruments is quite different, the correlation between the two tests was extensive and the meaning which emerged from the siglatures of Rorschach test was consistent with the original meaning of TCI dimensions. These results support a cross validation of both tests and shed a light about the psychodynamic roots of temperament dimensions of TCI