Talk:Hermann Rorschach

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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Lavendergrl66, Emilyyyv 003.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 23:23, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

"Art teacher"
The article in present form suggests H.R. was TEACHING art BEFORE graduating from school. That leaves the reader wondering how, when and where he might have been doing so to deserve such title !147.142.186.54 15:09, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think it does suggest that, any more. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:01, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

"Name Pronounciation"
Just wondering but since he's Swiss, shouldn't he's name in IPA be written as it is pronounced in Swiss Standard German and not in how it is in Germany? There's quite some differences between the two. 77.59.57.41 (talk) 13:11, 12 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok, nobody has objected so far so i've changed the IPA pronounciation of his name from (German) High German [heɐman ʁoɐʃax] to Swiss High German herman [herman roːrʃax]. 77.59.57.41 (talk) 16:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)


 * We currently have: "( or )" - ?! Martinevans123 (talk) 09:00, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Date of death
I have copied the details from the ISR verbatim. The previous dod was 2 April 1912. It seems curious that the IRS should give his age at death of 38, when it agrees that his dob was 8 November 1884. A more reliable source may mean that dod will need to be reverted to 2 April. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:57, 4 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Deutsche Biographie states that he died on 2 April (not on 1 April). However, International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis (2005), p. 1512, claims that he died on 3 April. I think that the DB is the most reliable of these. --Mlang.Finn (talk) 20:17, 24 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Many thanks for that info. ISR still says 1 April. You might think that, if anyone would know the correct date, they would? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:22, 24 January 2021 (UTC)


 * The page you are referring to is an archived page and its contents cannot be changed or corrected anymore, even if proven wrong. I would not rely on it blindly anyway — although it is very kind of you. The Rorschach Archives and Collection at Institute for the History of Medicine, University of Bern, has a “Short biography of Hermann Rorschach (1884–1922)” where it currently reads, “On April 2, 1922, at the age of thirty-seven, Hermann Rorschach died of a belatedly diagnosed appendicitis.” Also Wikidata and BNF give this date, as well as Find a Grave but there is no photograph of a gravestone. In the current contents of the ISR site, I cannot find any biography of Dr. Rorschach. --Mlang.Finn (talk) 18:00, 26 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Find a Grave is not generally considered a WP:RS. But looking at all the other sources, I think we should change the date to 2 April and update the sources accordingly. This is consistent with the Encyclopædia Britannica here. There's another book source, The Cult of Personality Testing, by Annie Murphy Paul (2010)here. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:19, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Image of Rorschach
Following this link: Overview of the Rorschach test, published by the Göteborgs Universitet, Sweden from the Rorschach test page, shows the following explanation: '''The picture of Hermann Rorschach on this page is from H. Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious (Basic Books 1970). Reproduced with kind permission from Institut Henri Ellenberger, Paris.'''

How does this square with the explanation on the commons image Hermann Rorschach.jpg which claims that the picture has been in the public domain since 1922 simply because that is the year that the subject of the photograph died? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:13, 8 August 20

Was he really Freudian?
I am rather concerned that this article introduces Rorschach as a "Swiss Freudian (sic.) psychiatrist". I have always understood that Rorschach was actually more Jungian than Freudian. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 23:35, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it's a moot point as to whether Rorschach really considered himself a "real Freudian". The subject is examined here, although this is a pay-for-view site. But as pointed out in this article, his work can be seen as having been "nourished and developed in an enriched climate of Freudian Psychoanalysis" and as resting on the Freudian concept of projection. The International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (1968) says this:


 * "Some correspondence with Morgenthaler (1965) shows how strenuously Rorschach promoted psychoanalysis in Swiss medical circles.


 * Rorschach was undoubtedly supported in his psychoanalytic orientation by Bleuler, who was among the first to receive Freud’s ideas sympathetically. Jung, a resident in a suburb of Zurich, was giving impetus to experimentation with free association as well as to extraversion-introversion theory. Bleuler’s psychiatry and the theories of Jung and Freud were the three principal sources of the ideas that were to crystallize in Rorschach’s test. He used psychoanalytic theory in interpreting the test record of one of Oberholzer’s patients (Rorschach & Oberholzer 1923) and also in an article on two Swiss leaders of religious sects (1927), whom he had studied before he developed the test. In this paper he traced personality changes from the introversive to the extratensive type. He anticipated his own exposition in the Psychodiagnostics ([1921] 1942, pp. 102 ff.).


 * Rorschach’s test clearly reflects his particular scientific preferences, powerful as the influences of Freud, Jung, and Bleuler may have been. His basic method was empirical and his temperament that of the experimentalist.


 * A detailed post-hoc examination is given in Paul M. Lerner's 1998 book : . Martinevans123 (talk) 08:49, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Unlike his classmates...
The part "unlike his classmates, however, Rorschach went on to make inkblots his life's work." seems odd. I'm willing to believe his classmates didn't make a living on inkblots, but how is that a contradiction, or noteworthy? Mverleg (talk) 04:46, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Isn't it rather a contrast than a contradiction? A fun way of bridging childish ink blots to a serious diagnostic tool, that to Rorschach was so exciting and valuable that he even published about it? Only his untimely death prevented him from even more research and publication on inkblots.  That's what makes the contrast noteworthy, imho.  --84.56.74.229 (talk) 08:28, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Test not an overnight success
The article as it currently stands suggests that the tests were an overnight success. The citation used actually says the opposite and then another citation confirms that they were ANYTHING BUT an overnight success. T324david (talk) 12:20, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Updated info on Hermann Rorschach's children
Please add/modify with following facts or create separate entries for the three:

The Hermann Rorschach Archives and Museum http://biblio.unibe.ch/rorschach/en/nachlaesse.html http://biblio.unibe.ch/rorschach/en/nachlaesse.html#oro

Olga Štempelin (1878-1961), née Ol’ga Vil’gemovna Štempelin, was born on 27th May/8th June 1878 in Buinsk, a small town near Kazan, as the eldest child of Wilhelm Karlow Štempelin, pharmacist, and Elisaweta Matwjewa. Her father’s family originated in the Baltic States but had settled generations earlier in Russia. Her father belonged to the Lutheran church whereas his wife was an orthodox Russian. Together with her brother one year and sister eight years younger, Olga passed her childhood and youth first in Buinsk and later in Kazan. Having received her first education from her mother at home she entered the Rodionow Institute in Kazan, which had been founded by a grand duchess for daughters of noblemen, officers and state employees with special merits. After qualifying she lived with her brother in Kazan where he went to school while she earned a living for both by giving private lessons.

From 1901 to 1902 she attended medical lectures at the Friedrich Humboldt University in Berlin as a guest student (women not permitted to enroll), and in autumn 1902 matriculated as medical student at the University of Zurich, where, in 1906, she became acquainted with her fellow student Hermann Rorschach. In 1908, after concluding her studies with her dissertation “Zur Differentialdiagnose der perniziösen Anämie” (For Differential Diagnosis of Pernicious Anemia), she traveled to Kazan to prepare for the Russian state examination in medicine and to begin a lifetime of discrimination from the medical community based solely on her sex. In 1910 she returned to Switzerland to marry Hermann Rorschach. The couple lived in a flat in the psychiatric hospital in Münsterlingen where in summer 1909 H.R. had been appointed assistant and where in 1911 Olga was engaged also as assistant although qualified to practice medicine. At the end of 1913 she together with her husband left Switzerland with the intention of settling in Russia. Her husband found employment in the private sanatorium Krjukovo near Moscow but, unsatisfied with the job, returned to Switzerland six months later to accept a position at the Psychiatric Hospital Waldau in Bern.

It was intended that Olga would follow him a couple of months later but, due to the outbreak of World War I, her return to Switzerland was delayed until 1915. In autumn 1915 the couple moved to Herisau where H.R. was engaged as associate director at the psychiatric hospital, but where Olga was not permitted to undertake any medical activities. In 1917 she gave birth to daughter Elisabeth (Lisa) and two years later to son Wadim. After the death of her husband in 1922 she had to support the family. For two years she held the post of her deceased husband, but then she had to leave because the administration came to the view that the post should be filled by a male with a Swiss medical diploma. It proved, however, to be difficult for her to find another job in a clinic and in 1924 she moved with her children to Teufen in Canton Appenzell. With a payment from her husband’s life insurance she was able to buy a small house where she provided accommodation and outpatient aftercare for a few discharged psychiatric patients. Furthermore she took the opportunities offered of deputizing in Ludwig Binswanger’s private sanatorium Bellevue in Kreuzlingen, and in the Psychiatric Hospital Cery in Lausanne. Thanks to Binswanger she was able to accompany wealthy patients abroad as their medical attendant. In 1953 she left her home in Teufen to live with her daughter Elisabeth in Zurich, where she died in 1961

Elisabeth Rorschach (1917-2006), remained unmarried. Her excellent English made her an important contact addressee for inquiries concerning her father and his estate. Born 18th June 1917 in Herisau, where her father had been employed since 1915 as a psychiatrist in the Cantonal Psychiatric Clinic. Her parents called her Lisa, and she used this name herself throughout her life. After her school years in Teufen and later at the Cantonal School St.Gallen, studied English and Romance languages and literature at the University of Zurich, graduating in 1947. After settling in Zurich, she taught at the Business College of the Commercial Association. In 1953 she took her aging mother into her flat in the outskirts of Zurich. She died unexpectedly on the 15th August 2006.

Wadim Rorschach (1919-2010), son of Olga and Hermann Rorschach and, like his father, a psychiatrist, never married had no offspring. After the death of his mother he, together with his sister Elisabeth, kept their father’s papers which they successively donated to the Rorschach Archives. Born May 1st,1919 in Herisau. Two years after his father's death the family moved to Teufen. After his school years in Teufen and the Cantonal School St.Gallen he entered medical school at the University in Zurich in 1938. In 1945, he concluded his studies and afterwards worked as assistant in various hospitals, receiving his doctorate in medicine in 1950. In 1952 opened a general practice in Buchs. After several years training in psychiatric clinics he became specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy and in 1973 opened a private practice as psychiatrist. He remained and practiced in Buchs until his death. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.138.137.96 (talk) 18:12, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, but no. You have provided no sources to enable verification of this, and there is nothing here to indicate that this information is notable. --Stfg (talk) 14:20, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Let's try again, shall we? : The Hermann Rorschach Archives and Museum http://biblio.unibe.ch/rorschach/en/nachlaesse.html http://biblio.unibe.ch/rorschach/en/nachlaesse.html#oro

Edit requests on 8 November 2013
Please change the sentence under Biography from "A son was born in 1917, and a daughter in 1919." to "A daughter named Elizabeth was born in 1917 and a son, Wadin in 1919." From the reference see the last sentence of the first paragraph under the section "Focused on Psychiatry in Medical Career".

Bassdemon88 (talk) 13:23, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

66.102.16.22 (talk) 15:06, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Done Thanks, Celestra (talk) 20:00, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

"Google Doodle"
Someone should mention that the 8/11/13 Google Doodle honored Rorschach. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.174.26.22 (talk) 18:56, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Why should this be mentioned? Several years from now it won't be relevant information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.133.7.130 (talk) 21:55, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Indeed so. Also, on talk pages, please add new sections to the end (the New section link at the top of the page automatically puts it in the right place.) --Stfg (talk) 14:10, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Some feedback please?
This was student project done in conjunction with the Wiki Education Foundation. This is clearly indicated in the banner on top of this page. I can see that the students made some mistakes when moving their sandbox contents over to article mainspace. If you are going to revert the article, especially considering that it is supposed to be a learning experience for undergrads, please let them know what they did wrong. Thanks in advance for any advice you may offer for them and future classes. J.R. Council (talk) 23:23, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Which were the contentious reverts? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:26, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Please compare 12:25, December 9, 2015‎ Martinevans123 with 12:18, December 9, 2015‎ Lavendergrl66. You will find that virtually everything added by the students has been reverted. Versions 12:25, December 9, 2015‎ Martinevans123 and 16:53, June 15, 2015‎ Martinevans123 are almost exactly identical. If you can give some specific reasons (even if they're obvious to you), it would be most helpful. J.R. Council (talk) 23:41, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * My edit summary was: "rather unclear what the intention was here". So, what was the intention? We're just talking about one student here, aren't we? Martinevans123 (talk) 23:48, 15 December 2015 (UTC)


 * We're talking about three students in my history of psych class. The intention was to expand the Wikipedia biography of Rorschach. Please see User:Lavendergrl66/sandbox for the development of the article. I think "rather unclear what the intention was here" is pretty vague. Please be more helpful. . J.R. Council (talk) 00:30, 16 December 2015 (UTC)


 * , it isn't at all clear to me what you're trying to say here. My understanding of what you're saying is that you'd be satisfied with better edit summaries? If so, great. (Well, not great - that's not a reason to revert an edit.) If not, please explain your problem with the edit - other than the obvious problem of the broken refs. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:28, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm trying to say there were no edit summaries at all, so the intention of those four edits was unclear. It's not always obvious that a new editor is part of "a student project done in conjunction with the Wiki Education Foundation" if the banner that names them, was put there three months previously? Maybe some kind of time-frame in the banner would help there? Or may a first edit which references the project? I was also trying to clarify with you that only one of the three students named seems to have made any edits, although that's really none of my direct concern, I guess. In retrospect, some the material added by User:Lavendergrl66 was useful. So maybe my revert was a bit hasty. If you are prepared to fix the broken refs and copy edit for unsupported claims I am willing to self revert and we can go from there? Martinevans123 (talk) 23:10, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you Martinevans123. I think last year's students gave up. After all, the semester was over and the project was done. However, if you're willing to bear with another group, I might have some students who are willing to tackle this article this or a future semester, and I'm sure would appreciate your expertise. J.R. Council (talk) 21:42, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
 * No worries. User:Lavendergrl66 tried to make a useful contribution. I am still perfectly willing to self revert here if you could help fix anything that's broken. But I still see this as an unconventional educational model - if successive students are good in improving the article, surely it becomes increasingly difficult for future students to find equally good new material to add? There's only so much we can say about Hermann in this article. We can't wipe the slate clean before each new semester, can we? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:15, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
 * No not usual. But they came up with some good new material which was all reverted. (Not all of the new stuff was good, BTW. And I could see that some writing was sub-par and the style was not entirely appropriate to Wikipedia.) I'm thinking a new group could go back to the reverted material and add some back in a more acceptable way. (As an aside, I don't think that the writing was too terrible, compared to other Wikipedia articles I've seen. However, some articles seem to get a lot more scrutiny than others, and thus have to meet a higher standard. No problem with that.) J.R. Council (talk) 22:28, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
 * So here is my quandary: we now leave the article here lacking what could easily be added, in the hope that your future students will correct it. And in the interim, of course, anyone at all is free to step in and do just that. If that's not an "unconventional educational model", it looks to me like an "unconventional Wikipedia editing model" that seems to depend, at least in part, on my laziness? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:34, 2 February 2016 (UTC) p.s. by the way, does that tag at the top of this Talk Page now need to be removed or adjusted? Thanks.
 * Of course not. No one expects Wikipedia to stand still just because someone might work on an article. What happens happens. I'm just saying that I'm listing this article among many others students could choose from, so it could happen. I find a lot of value in assigning Wikipedia writing projects to my students. However, they have to conform to Wikipedia norms, not vice versa. I'm not sure if you know about this stuff, but you might be interested in checking out the Wikipedia Education Foundation website. J.R. Council (talk) 22:49, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Right, so I'll do my best to improve the article so much that even a university professor couldn't add a useful comma. Or else maybe I'll just put my feet up. Thanks for the link. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:53, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

10 monkeys (*or possibly bats or moths)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Blott? Yes, noted, but probably not encyclopedic material Martinevans123 (talk) 10:09, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

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