167: The Rorschach Performance Assessment System---Overview and Case Illustration

This intermediate workshop introduces the new, empirically grounded Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS). R-PAS uses the task as a verbal and perceptual behavior sample obtained under standardized conditions such that personality inferences are based on observed performance rather than self-description. Test scores are compared to new internationally based norms and graphically displayed using standard scores. After describing the meta-analytic research foundation for R-PAS, the presenters focus on distinctive features of administration, coding, normative reference data, and interpretation and apply the system to a case.

1. Describe the basic empirical and conceptual foundation for variables in R-PAS,
2. Summarize the value of "performance assessment" as a foundation for clinical interpretation,
3. Explain why new normative reference standards will improve clinical inferences,
4. Describe the procedures that allow R-PAS norms to be expressed as standard scores despite the fact that many summary variables do not have normal distributions,
5. Implement standardized administration procedures that optimize the length of Rorschach protocols,
6. Summarize the R-PAS principles for accurate interpretation and contrast them with previous models, and
7. Apply R-PAS interpretive procedures and guidelines to a case.

Gregory J. Meyer, PhD, and Joni L. Mihura, PhD, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH; Philip Erdberg, PhD, Independent Practice, Greenbrae, CA