The Szondi test is a psychological test similar to the Rorschach test. The Szondi test asks people to view 48 photographs of different mental patients and pick out those they feel the most in common with. Unbeknownst to the test subjects, all the people in the photographs have displayed sadistic natures in one way or another. Szondi further placed the photographs into four categories; manic-depressive, homosexual and sadistic, epileptic and hysterical, and paranoid and catatonic. Modern psychology no longer uses the Szondi test as much as other psychological tools due to the apparent weak analysis behind the theory.
Leopold Szondi speculated that people would either be attracted or repulsed by the photographs they were witnessing based on their own personalities. He also postulated that their reactions to the photographs would change and shift based on their mood, and as such the test would have to be retaken a number of times. To gather a better picture of the patient, Szondi suggested that his family history be analyzed as well. This would allow the analyst to see what disorders the family may have suffered from, and how their lives were lived in terms of love, marriage and occupation choices.
It is thought that humans have motivations and responses that are unconscious to them and the Szondi test is supposed to uncover some of these tendencies. The test is not without its detractors, with some claiming that it is not reliable because it is based on the subjective judgment of the person administering the test. Even though the method is in doubt, the tests are still quite widely employed as a means of unlocking the inner workings of people with mental and emotional problems. It is thought that by keeping the projective test ambiguous, the subject is able to talk more freely about issues that resonate on a deeper level.
Sigmund Freud's reaction
With the publication of his theory of choice Szondi presented a new scientific paradigm, which should herald development of a new discipline in depth psychology: the fate analysis. In 1937 the 44 year old researcher from Budapest sent his “Analysis of Marriages” to Sigmund Freud. In his written answer, Freud conceded, though skeptical and with distance as to the subject, some influence although marginal to Szondi's arguments.
Fascinated Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann author of “Die Buddenbrooks” and Nobel Prize Winner,was fascinated by Szondi's thoughts about man as “gene-being” whose destiny begins long before procreation and birth. Infact, he wrote to Szondi on the 23rd of October 1953 from his home in Erlenbach-Zurich:
Dear Dr Szondi,
By sending me your “Schicksalsanalyse” (fate analysis) you made an important gift to me for which I send you my best thanks. The book has been on my mind quite a while and shall still be so. Some items seem surprisingly familiar - just as does suggest the recollection of Schopenhauer's essay “Über die scheinbare Absichtlichkeit im Schicksal des Einzelnen” (On the apparent intention in the fate of the individual). The theory about “Elternwahl” (choice of the parents), figurative as it may be, and at the beginning of our life „even before the copulation of the sexual cells”, the genotropic thinking seems to me to lead over to Schopenhauer's Metaphysica, a philosophy of the “will” to one-self. You know: to save freedom, guilt and merit, Schopenhauer transfers them from operari to esse. Men's actions, he suggests, follow strict determinations, “but it could have been different”. Man with his fate therefore is also what he has chosen to be. Doesn't it come very near to a “genetic schedule”? I cannot enter further into the profound and sharp witted thoughts of the book in pros and cons. It's refused to me. Take these lines as a brief sign of my sympathy!
Yours very devoted Thomas Mann
No comments:
Post a Comment