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The test comprises 31 cards. One card is blank and the other thirty include blurred but emotionally powerful (or even disturbing) photographs and drawings. Originally, Murray came up with only 20 cards which he divided to three groups: B (to be shown to Boys Only), G (Girls Only) and M-or-F (both sexes). The cards expound on universal themes. Card 2, for instance, depicts a country scene. A man is toiling in the background, tilling the field; a woman partly obscures him, carrying books; an old woman stands idly by and watches them both. Card 3BM is dominated by a couch against which is propped a little boy, his head resting on his right arm, a revolver by his side, on the floor. Card 6GF again features a sofa. A young woman occupies it. Her attention is riveted by a pipe-smoking older man who is talking to her. She is looking back at him over her shoulder, so we dont have a clear view of her face. Another generic young woman appears in card 12F. But this time, she is juxtaposed against a mildly menacing, grimacing old woman, whose head is covered with a shawl. Men and boys seem to be permanently stressed and dysphoric in the TAT. Card 13MF, for instance, shows a young lad, his lowered head buried in his arm. A woman is bedridden across the room. With the advent of objective tests, such as the MMPI and the MCMI, projective tests such as the TAT have lost their clout and luster. Today, the TAT is administered infrequently. Modern examiners use 20 cards or less and select them according to their intuition as to the patients problem areas. In other words, the diagnostician first decides what may be wrong with the patient and only then chooses which cards will be shown in the test! Administered this way, the TAT tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy and of little diagnostic value. The patients reactions (in the form of brief narratives) are recorded by the tester verbatim. Some examiners prompt the patient to describe the aftermath or outcomes of the stories, but this is a controversial practice. The TAT is scored and interpreted simultaneously. Murray suggested to identify the hero of each narrative (the figure representing the patient); the inner states and needs of the patient, derived from his or her choices of activities or gratifications; what Murray calls the press, the heros environment which imposes constraints on the heros needs and operations; and the thema, or the motivations developed by the hero in response to all of the above. Clearly, the TAT is open to almost any interpretative system which emphasizes inner states, motivations, and needs. Indeed, many schools of psychology have their own TAT exegetic schemes. Thus, the TAT may be teaching us more about psychology and psychologists than it does about their patients! |
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