Department of Psychology

RORSCHACH PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT SYSTEM (R-PAS) INFORMATION

Gregory J. Meyer, Donald J. Viglione, Joni L. Mihura, Robert E. Erard, and Philip Erdberg

NOTEWe finalized our R-PAS administration, coding, interpretation, and technical manual in early September 2011. Details about us, the manual, and the scoring program can be found at www.r-pas.org. The information posted below is outdated. However, we are leaving this page up for the time being because it provides our recommendations for current Rorschach users who have yet to adopt R-PAS.

The first two links below provide slides from a progress report on our efforts to develop R-PAS that was given at the Society for Personality Assessment Convention in San Jose (March 24-28, 2010). The slides do not convey the full scope of our efforts, but do give an idea of what we are doing with the new system.

Many people asked what we recommended for enhanced clinical practice while R-PAS was still under development. Our response was simple and it involved three recommendations. We believe these recommendations are still optimal for clinicians who have not yet begun using R-PAS.

First, we recommend that clinicians use the aggregated reference data published in the 2007 JPA Supplement on International Reference Samples for the Rorschach Comprehensive System. This project is described in the slides and if you do not already have access to this journal a copy of the supplement can be purchased from Taylor and Francis for USD $30 (http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/spissue/hjpa-si.asp). We believe inferences about functioning will be more accurate using these reference data as a benchmark for what is normal or expected in nonpatients.
 
Second, we recommend that clinicians focus their interpretation on the "Page 1" and "Page 2" variables described in our Rationale document and avoid interpreting the other variables. Based on our review of the validity literature, the collective input of more than 200 experienced clinicians, and the conceptual foundation for each score, we believe that clinical practice will be improved by focusing on a smaller but stronger subset of variables.
 
As described in the slides, we also believe that a modified administration procedure to optimize the number of responses is a useful change. This procedure makes the mean values from existing reference data fit a larger number of people. As such, it helps improve clinical inferences. This R-Optimized administration procedure is described using summary guidelines for administration that are drawn from the R-PAS manual.
 
Downloads
 
Symposium
Rationale for Variable Selection
R-PAS Administration and Clarification Guidelines
Last Updated: 6/27/22