Rorschach test in murderers: a systematic review of the literature 1946-2021 I - single case studies & miscellanea

Abstract

A total of 91 studies on Rorschach test in murderers from 1946 to 2021, written in English (62), French (13), Italian (12) or other languages (N = 4; Portuguese, Spanish and German) were reviewed, searched from the main databases (PubMed, Medline Complete, Embase, PsycINFO, Psyc-NET, PEPWeb, Cochrane, Gallica and Perseus) and other relevant sources (Google scholar; books and journals in the Rorschach field; Rorschach bibliographies; Buros MMY Mental Measurement Yearbooks), as well as from researcher networks (academia.edu, researchgate.net) and from the list of references of identified articles. Literature searching, study selection, screening and data extraction were carried out independently and concordantly by two authors. All the papers con-taining data on the Rorschach test in murderers were included, but only the contributions whose full text pdf was available were considered. Five types of studies were identified: 1) Literature reviews (N = 4); 2) Single case studies (N = 31); 3) Descriptive studies on murderer samples without controls (N = 20) or compared with normative data (N = 2); 4) Case-Control group comparative studies (N = 28), 5) Miscellanea (N = 6). All the studies have been summarized in detail, so that they almost always replace a direct reading. The present paper concerns single case studies (N = 31), without (N = 10) or with (N = 21) Rorschach record, and miscellaneous studies (N = 6). The results are extensively discussed, focusing on forensic implications and indications for future research.