The objective of this book is to provide readers with a comprehensive account of the childOCOs personality. The book examines in detail significant personality dimensions from developmental, clinical and cross-cultural perspectives. The intricacies of personality are exposed by means of the Fairy Tale Test, an instrument that attempts to track the preconscious and unconscious processes that OC conspireOCO beneath the behavioral and overt manifestations of personality. ChildrenOCOs responses to the FTT questions are assessed both from a quantitative and a qualitative perspective. Twenty-nine personality variables are used to rate the broad range of personality characteristics. No other personality test assesses such a large number of personality parameters. The qualitative evaluation of responses includes the analysis of 14 defense mechanisms, the study of the nature of anxiety, family dynamics, and the examination of ego integration and ego strength. The unique quality of this book is the use of the FTT in the exploration of the childOCOs personality, using large samples of children derived from diverse cultures. Additional advantages of this book are the chapters which focus on the research into two significant personality traits: aggression and ambivalence and the chapter on the analysis of idiosyncratic responses; the latter offers valuable information in the classification of original responses into levels of psychopathology. While the FTT has taken significant steps towards becoming a valid and reliable instrument, studies of its psychometric properties are an ongoing process. The book also includes examples, case studies and appendices for further study and review."

The two volumes of the Handbook of Psychological and Educational Assessment of Children, Second Edition, cover all aspects of child and adolescent assessment. Leading clinical scientists summarize the state of the science of assessment paradigms, instruments, and methods. With an emphasis on practical clinical considerations, chapters also delve into issues related to test development, psychometrics, and bias. Conveniently designed for reference or text use, this vast knowledge base has been synthesized into two volumes which may be purchased separately or together. INTELLIGENCE, APTITUDE, AND ACHIEVEMENT surveys assessment of intelligence, learning styles, and academic achievement; covers historical issues and psychometric methods; and addresses diversity issues, ethical concerns, and special topics in mental testing. PERSONALITY, BEHAVIOR, AND CONTEXT reviews the use of projective methods, interviewing and observation, and objective methods of assessing personality and behavior; discusses the assessment of specific syndromes and symptoms; and presents tools for assessing adaptive skills and the family context.

Nominated for a 2018 Gradiva Award for Best Book by the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, Using Projective Methods with Children is an enhanced synthesis of Steve Tuber’s previously published research on the study of projective methods to assess the representations of self and others, as well as the actual interpersonal experiences children internalize in the form of these representations. Integrating conceptual and empirical work, with an emphasis on the Rorschach Inkblot Method (RIM), the book offers unique, evidence-based information on the importance of assessing particular aspects of a child’s inner self. The studies cover a broad range of topics such as dreams, anxiety disorders, political oppression, homelessness, and multiculturalism, and each is supplemented with an analytical introduction. A section that discusses future areas of research is also included.

The fourth edition of this textbook offers a scientific and practical context within which to understand and conduct clinical assessments of children’s and adolescent’s personality and behavior. The new edition ensures that the content is relevant to diagnostic criteria for major forms of child and adolescent psychopathology in the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). It provides updated information on specific tests and discusses advances in research that have occurred since the last edition that are relevant for assessing the most common forms of psychopathology shown by children and adolescents. The volume is unique in providing both the scientific and ethical basis to guide psychological testing, as well as providing practical advice for using specific tests and assessing specific forms of psychopathology. This new edition: Highlights how current trends in psychological classification, such as the DSM-5 and the Research Domain Criteria, should influence the clinical assessment of children and adolescents. Provides updates to professional standards that should guide test users. Discusses practical considerations in planning and conducting clinical assessments. Evaluates the most recent editions of common tests used in the clinical assessment of child and adolescent personality and behavior. Provides an overview of how to screen for early signs of emotional and behavioral risk for mental problems in children and adolescents. Discusses practical methods for integrating assessment information collecting as part of a clinical assessment. Uses current research to guide clinical assessments of children with Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, conduct problems, depression, anxiety, and autism spectrum disorder. Clinical Assessment of Child and Adolescent Personality and Behavior is a valuable updated resource for graduate students as well as veteran and beginning clinicians across disciplines, including school, clinical child, developmental, and educational psychology; psychiatry; counseling; and social work; as well as related disciplines that provide mental health and educational services to children and adolescents.

Martin Leichtman's The Rorschach is a work of stunning originality that takes as its point of departure a circumstance that has long confounded Rorschach examiners. Attempts to use the Rorschach with young children yield results that are inconsistent if not comical. What, after all, does one make of a protocol when the child treats a card like a frisbee or confidently detects "piadigats" and "red foombas"? A far more consequential problem facing examiners of adults and children alike concerns the very nature of the Rorschach test. Despite voluminous literature establishing the personality correlates of particular Rorschach scores, neither Hermann Rorschach nor his intellectual descendants have provided an adequate explanation of precisely what the subject is being asked to do. Is the Rorschach a test of imagination? Of perception? Of projection? In point of fact, Leichtman argues, the two problems are intimately related. To appreciate the stages through which children gradually master the Rorschach in its standard form is to discover the nature of the test itself. Integrating his developmental analysis with an illuminating discussion of the extensive literature on test administration, scoring, and interpretation, Leichtman arrives at a new understanding of the Rorschach as a test of representation and creativity. This finding, in turn, leads to an intriguing reconceptualization of all projective tests that clarifies their relationships to more objective measures of ability.

Since its creation more than eighty years ago, the famous Rorschach inkblot test has become an icon of clinical psychology and popular culture. Administered over one million times world-wide each year, the Rorschach is used to assess personality and mental illness across a wide range of circumstances: child custody disputes, educational placement decisions, employment and termination proceedings, parole determinations, and even investigations of child abuse allegations. The test's enormous power shapes the lives of hundreds of thousands of people -- often without their knowledge. In the 1970s, this notoriously subjective test was supposedly systematized and improved. But is the Rorschach more than a modern variant on tea leaf reading? What's Wrong With the Rorschach? challenges the validity and utility of the Rorschach and explains why psychologists continue to judge people by their reactions to ink blots, in spite of a half century of largely negative scientific evidence. What's Wrong With the Rorschach? offers a provocative critique of one of the most widely applied and influential - and still intensely controversial - psychological tests in the world today. Surveying more than fifty years of clinical and scholarly research, the authors provide compelling scientific evidence that the Rorschach has relatively little value for diagnosing mental illness, assessing personality, predicting behavior, or uncovering sexual abuse or other trauma. In this highly engaging, novelistic account of the Rorschach's origins and history, the authors detail the wealth of scientific evidence that the test is of questionable utility for real-world decision making. What's Wrong With the Rorschach? presents a powerfully reasoned case against using the test in the courtroom or consulting room - and reveals the strong psychological, economic, and political forces that continue to support the Rorschach despite the research that has exposed its shortcomings and dangers. James M. Wood (El Paso, TX) is Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, at the University of Texas at El Paso. M. Teresa Nezworski (Dallas, TX) is Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Dallas. Scott O. Lilienfeld (Atlanta, GA) is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Emory University in Atlanta. Howard N. Garb (Pittsburgh, PA) is on the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh and the author of Studying the Clinician: Judgement Research and Psychological Assessment.