Page No 9-19.
Chris Piotrowski
University of West Florida, USA.
Projective techniques have been the target of extensive criticism, from both clinicians
and academicians, since the 1940s. However, the last two decades have witnessed a
steady stream of rather reviled and condescending commentary directed largely on the
lack of psychometric credibility of individual projective methods. The intent of the current
study is to determine whether this collective movement, evident in the scholarly literature,
against projective techniques has had a deleterious impact on test usage worldwide. To
that end, the author identified, through an extensive literature review, published survey
research that reported on test usage patterns from 1995-2015. The 28 identified studies
served as the data pool to ascertain the extent of use of projective instruments within the
context of psychological tests available to mental health practitioners. Around 70% of the
sample was from the USA, but other countries (e.g., Africa, UK, Hong Kong, Belgium,
and Brazil) were also represented. The analysis showed that at least one projective
technique was ranked among the top 5 tests, in terms of usage, in 14 of the 28 studies.
Moreover, human-figure-drawings, sentence completion measures, and the TAT were
ranked among the top 15 tests in all but three of these studies. These findings confirm
continued use (albeit to a lesser degree than 50 years ago) of projective tests among
mental health practitioners worldwide, despite the onslaught of perennial criticism in
the research literature