PSYCHIATRY DEPT/SERVICES

Psychological testing is always performed by a licensed psychologist and mostly consists of paper-and-pencil tests. They are done to help a psychologist better understand an individual and provide important insights into the individual’s behaviour, skills, thoughts and personality.

Rorschach: In the Rorschach inkblot test a subject is shown a series of ten irregular but symmetrical inkblots, and asked to explain what they see. The subject’s responses are then analyzed in different ways, noting not only what was said, but the time taken to respond and which aspect of the drawing was focused on.

Holtzman Inkblot Test: This test uses a much larger pool of different images. Different variables such as reaction time are scored for an individual’s response on seeing an inkblot.

Thematic Apperception Test: Another popular projective test is the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) in which an individual views ambiguous scenes of people, and is asked to describe various aspects of the scene. Such as, the subject may be asked to explain what led up to this scene, the emotions of the characters and what might happen afterwards. A clinician will assess these descriptions, attempting to discover the conflicts, motivations and attitudes of the respondent.

Draw-A-Person test: This test requires the subject to draw a person. The results are based on a psychodynamic understanding of the details of the drawing, such as the size, shape and complexity of the facial features, clothing and background of the figure.

Animal Metaphor Test: The Animal Metaphor test comprises a series of creative and analytical prompts. The person appearing for the test is asked to generate a story and then interpret its personal significance. The test combines facets of art therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy and insight therapy, while also providing a theoretical platform of behavioural analysis. The test has been used extensively as a clinical tool, as an educational assessment and in human resource selection.

IQ Test: An intelligence quotient (IQ) is a score derived from one of various standardized tests designed to measure human intelligence. IQ scores have been shown to be related to factors such as morbidity and mortality, parental social status, and to some degree, biological parental IQ. They are also used to learn distributions of psychometric intelligence in populations and the correlations between it and other variables.