Yet the Rorschach is still used by eight out of ten clinical psychologists, administered in nearly a third of emotional injury assessments and in almost half of child custody evaluations.

“If psychologists used tea leaves instead of the Rorschach, we’d probably be better off, because then, at least, no one else would take the results seriously,” he says.

bridge of the nose) has been associated with negativity and neuroticism.

The test’s numerous detractors charge that the Rorschach—originally designed for use with psychiatric patients but now frequently given to normal people—“overpathologizes,”

What’s Wrong With the Rorschach?, written with M. Teresa Nezworski, Scott Lilienfeld, and Howard Garb and released in 2003.

Every one of the students has the same thick book before her, A Primer for Rorschach Interpretation.

The Rorschach routinely “overpathologizes” healthy people, Wood and the others maintain, making them seem much more dysfunctional than they really are.

and is used by 89 of the companies in the Fortune 100.

Today it’s administered to an estimated 15 million Americans each year, in spite of the fact that it features invasive questions about test takers’ sex lives and bathroom habits.