A Sequential-Narrative Psychodynamic Approach to TAT Interpretation

As a story telling measure, the Thematic apperception test (TAT; Murray, 1943. Thematic apperception test manual. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press) has been an integral part of psychological assessment batteries dating back to the pioneering work of Rapaport et al. (Diagnostic psychological testing (rev. Edition). New York, NY: International Universities Press). Approaches to analyse TAT stories include, for clinical purposes: (a) organising information into discrete categories of ego functioning (e.g. Bellak, 1986. The T.A.T., C.A.T., and S.A.T. in clinical use (4th Edition), Larchmont, NY: Grune & Stratton), (b) content analysis of intrapsychic conflict (e.g. Arnold, 1949. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 44, No. 1, pp. 97; Arnold, 1951. Magda Arnold. In: Shneidman ES, ed. Thematic Test Analysis. pp. 31, Routledge, New York, NY; Arnold, 1962. Story sequence analysis: A new method of measuring motivation and predicting achievement. New York, NY: Columbia University Press; Sarason, 1948. Journal of Consulting Psychology, Vol. 12, No. 5, pp. 285; Schafer, 1958. Journal of Projective Techniques, Vol. 22, pp. 181), (c) subjective experience of client vulnerability (e.g. Hilsenroth, 1998. Using metaphor to understand projective test data: A training heuristic. In: Hilsenroth MJ, and Handler L, eds. Teaching and Learning Personality Assessment. pp. 391–412, Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ; Silverstein, 1999. Self psychology and diagnostic assessment: Identifying selfobject functions through psychological testing. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum) and, typically for research purposes, (d) utilisation of formal scoring systems (e.g. Jenkins, 2008. A handbook of clinical scoring systems for thematic apperceptive techniques. New York, NY: Routledge). This article presents a psychodynamic interpretive approach to TAT sequence analysis that draws from TAT (Arnold, 1949. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 44, No. 1, pp. 97; Arnold, 1951. Magda Arnold. In: Shneidman ES, ed. Thematic Test Analysis. pp. 31, Routledge, New York, NY; Arnold, 1962. Story sequence analysis: A new method of measuring motivation and predicting achievement. New York, NY: Columbia University Press) methods for developing inferences across cards. TAT stories are read as an evolving narrative, not focused on a specific theme but more on the unfolding of a complex story, with TAT stimulus cards providing reality based ‘residue ’akin to Freud's dream model [Freud S, 1981. The interpretation of dreams. In: Strachey J, (Ed. & Trans.). The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol. 4–5, pp. 1. (Original work published in 1900)]. A brief illustration of the method's application is presented and integrated with a case of an adolescent male born of Asian parents, adopted by a US family at an early age. The case addresses multiculturalism and depression as well as other issues associated with the referral.