Szondi test

The Szondi test is a 1935 nonverbal projective personality test developed by Léopold Szondi.It is undeniable that Szondi has a fundamentally anthropological preoccupation. It is why his work has, up to now, undoubtedly found a more favourable echo among philosophers (Henri Niel, Alphonse De Waelhens, and Henry Maldiney) than among psychoanalysts and psychiatrists, for whom his work is a great challenge.A drive system must give us a synthetic sight of the whole of the drive activities, comparable to the total impression which white light gives us, but it must also make it possible to display 'the spectrum' of the drives just like light can be divided in colours. It is an extremely difficult task and it is not at all astonishing that we have not yet arrived at this point.Ein Triebststem muß aus Triebgegensatzpaaren konstituiert werden, die einerseits in jedem Individuum vorhanden sind, andererseits mit den pathopsychologischen, d.h. Psychiatrischen Erbkreisen genau übereinstimmen. (...) Die psychiatrische Vererbungslehre hat bisher drei selbständige Erb Kreise der Geisteskrankheiten festgestellt.1.1 Introduction to Theory Cherche à jeter les bases d'une authentique anthropologie psychanalytique d'après le schéma pulsionnel de Szondi.(...) the subject is asked to choose, in each series, the two most agreeable and disagreeable types. The choice reveals what situations are approved or reproved, or the ones that evinced indifference from the examinee. Szondi wished to show with his test, that the choices made by the individual denounce the satisfied or unsatisfied instinctive needs and the reactions linked to instinctive unsatisfied inclinations.Für die Anwendung der Existenzform-Analyse verlangt SZONDI (1965 b) vom Diagnostiker 'gründliche Schulung in der Denkweise der Schicksalspsychologie' sowie 'solide Kenntnis und Uebung der Syndromatik'. Diesen hohen Anforderungen suchten wir nach Möglichkeit nachzukommen.Wir deuteten diese Diskordanz damit, daß der Aufforderungscharakter der Balintschen Bilder nicht groß genug ist, um die Vp zu schockieren. Balints Streben war aber, womöglich Photos von «schönen» Kranken in seine Serie aufzunehmen, da er meine originalen Bilder zu gräßlich und schockierend fand. So blieb aber die notwendige Schockwirkung weg. Ohne Schockwirkung sind aber Photos zur Prüfung des Trieb- und Ich-Lebens unbrauchbar.In other words, by means of choice reactions the Szondi test aims directly at the unconscious sphere of psychic events. This goal is in contrast with graphology, which first analyzes phenomenologically the subject's behavior.l'on y trouvera ici une introducion générale sous la forme encore inédite des conférences prononcées comme professeur invité a l'Université de Zurich en 1963. The Szondi test is a 1935 nonverbal projective personality test developed by Léopold Szondi. In contrast to Freud's work, Szondi's approach is based on a systematic drive theory and a dimensional model of personality. That is, Szondi means to enumerate all human drives, classifying and framing them within a comprehensive theory. Szondi drive system is built on the basis of eight drive needs, each corresponding to a collective archetype of instinctive action. They are: The eight drive needs represent archetypes and are present in all individuals in different proportions; a fundamental assumption of Fate analysis is that the difference between mental 'illness' and mental 'health' is not qualitative but quantitative. A whole drive (Triebe, in Szondi's own terms), like the sexual drive S, is composed of a pair of two opposite drive needs (Triebbedürfnisse), in this case h (tender love) and s (sadism). Each drive need in turn has a positive and negative striving (Triebstrebung), for instance h+ (personal tender love) and h- (collective love), or s+ (sadism toward the other) and s- (masochism). The four whole drives correspond to the four independent hereditary circles of mental illness established by the psychiatric genetics of the time: the schizoform drive (containing the paranoid and the catatonic drive needs), the manic-depressive drive, the paroxysmal drive (including the epileptic and hysteric drive needs), and the sexual drive (including the hermaprodite and the sadomasochist drive needs). Szondi's drive diagram has been described as his major discovery and achievement. It has also been described as a revolutionary addition to psychology, and as paving the way for a theoretical psychiatry and a psychoanalytical anthropology. Szondi theory organizes phenomenons like: Antisocial personality disorder, paraphilia subtypes, histrionic personality disorder (P++), paranoid proper as 'projective paranoid', narcissistic personality disorder as 'inflative paranoid', blunted affect (P00), panic disorder (P--), phobia (P+0), hypochondria (Cm-), stupor (-hy), somatization and pain disorder as organ neurosis, conversion disorder (in Pe+, Phy and Schk- danger classes), dissociative fugue (Sch±- and C+0), paroxysmal attack (Sch±-), depersonalization disorder and alienation (Sch-±), obsessive–compulsive disorder and obsessive–compulsive personality disorder (Sch±+). Szondi analysis of destiny approach is based an anthropological preoccupation. Szondi's main philosophical references for the concept of fate are Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation (1818) and Heidegger's Being and Time (1927).