Wednesday, July 29, 2009

I See A 6th-Grade Art Project.

The doctor draws two circles and says, "What do you see?"
The guy says, "Sex."
So the doctor draws trees. "What do you see?"
The guy says, "Sex."
The doctor draws a car, owl, "Sex, sex, sex."
The doctor says to him, "You are obsessed with sex."
The guy replies, "Well you're the one drawing all the dirty pictures."
-From What About Bob?

Noam Cohen wrote a really interesting article in the NYT about the ten inkblot plates from the famous Rorschach test being made public on Wikipedia. A doctor posted the ten plates on the website and included the common answers people use when asked to describe what they see, upsetting many experts who believe this destroys the purpose of the test. Some doctors fear that once people know the common answers, it will influence how they respond during testing.

I wasn't sure how I felt about this. The power of suggestion is strong, so I suppose if you had an idea ahead of time of what you should be looking for, it might skew the deeply-rooted mysteries of your subconscious, thus stunting your potential for overall growth and understanding. But it seems that most people just see bats, butterflies, or a face. I wouldn't exactly call that a cheat sheet. In fact, I think that's what's referred to in Jungian psychology as, "A-Doyeee."

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