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Thematic Apperception Test
(TAT)
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| Henry A. Murray |
- First worked in the medical field (trained with more technical research work).
- Admired and studied with Carl Jung, thus his main theoretical orientation was psychoanalytical
- He desired to expand perception tests, focus on apperception.
- Invested an incredible amount of time to research on the TAT, so that it could "withstand the scientific world", rather he didn't believe the scoring was necessary to the psychotherapist using the tool.
- Intended the TAT to be utilized with different theoretical orientations.
- The TAT wasn't intended to "diagnose" but to gain a better understanding of the patient.
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Christiana Morgan
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- Given co-aurhorship, although this controversial
- Art background
- Contributed the set of drawings for the TAT
- She administered one of the earliest versions of the test to one of the first diagnosed anorexic patients in Boston
- As years past she, her credits dissipated
"Morgan was an artist, writer, and lay psychoanalyst fascinated by depth psychology. Part of the Introvert/Extrovert Club in New York City in the 1920s, she traveled to Zurich to consult Carl Jung. When Carl Jung met Christiana he considered her the manifestation of the perfect feminine... (wikipedia.org)".
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Why I enjoy projective measures…
(Perhaps it's my S.A.R.)
- Interactive!
- Emphasis on a dialogue
- Spotlight is less on patient
- Externalizes a story (although fictional, we often project our experiences into creative storytelling)
While many of the projective measures have roots in psycholanlytic, I believe that the TAT and CAT connect to Narrative Therapy as well.
The idea of our own constructed stories and constructing fictional stories can sometimes intertwine.
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| Creating Dialogue |
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Some of the lingo:
Hero - the protagonist or whom the patient identifies closest with
Needs -the motivating forces or drives coming from the hero
Press -the external influences (environmental/situations)
Outcome -interaction of press and needs, results in emotional "outcome"
Thema -identifies the behavior that stems from the needs, press, and outcome
The interpreter is looking for patterns of Thema throughout the story
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So, how does it work?
There's a set of 31 cards but the therapist only shows (traditionally) 20 scenes.
Traditionally, Murray intended the therapist to split the 20 cards/images into two 1.5 hour sessions, showing the patient 10 cards in each time.
Story cards can be separated based on gender, age, etc.
The patient is directed to tell a story from their imagination, with what happened before the drama, during, and what might happen after. It asks that you consider what the people are thinking, doing, their motives, etc.
The therapist is looking for patterns of behavior or words (thema) across stories.
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Your Turn!!
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There's a formal way to score words usage, tone, which groups into the example below:
http://www.utpsyc.org/TATintro/
| LIWC dimension | Your data | Male average | Female average |
|---|---|---|---|
| Need for Achievement | 5.14 | 5.8 | 5.6 |
| Need for Affiliation | 1.29 | 1.1 | 1.3 |
| Need for power | 1.61 | 1.7 | 1.8 |
| Self-references (I, me, my) | 1.29 | 0.5 | 0.8 |
| Social words | 12.86 | 11.4 | 12.0 |
| Positive emotions | 3.54 | 1.8 | 2.1 |
| Negative emotions | 0.64 | 1.5 | 1.6 |
| Big words (> 6 letters) | 16.72 | 18.7 | 17.7 |
Overall, you wrote 311 words in the 10 minutes.
Need for Achievement. The typical person generally scores between 4.5 and 8.5, with an average of 5.7. The higher your number, the more you wrote about achievement-related themes.
Need for Affiliation. Because this picture typically elicits themes associated with achievement, most people don't pay too much attention to human relationships in their story. In fact, the typical person scores around 1.2 on this dimension. Indeed, 30% of participants score 0.00.
Need for Power. Most people score between 0.8 and 2.7, with the average being 1.7. High scores on the need for power dimension hint that the writer is concerned with who is or is not in control andwho has the most status.
One thing that is interesting about this kind of exercise is that language analyses can tell us many things about the writer that go far beyond power, achievement, and affiliation. Look at the table below. In it, you can determine some features of your own writing and can get a sense of your writing style compared with others:
Self-references: People who use a high rate of self-references tend to be more insecure, nervous, and possibly depressed. They also tend to be more honest.
Social words: Social words are words that make reference to other people (e.g., they, she, us, talk, friends). Generally, people who use a high level of social words are more outgoing and more socially connected with others.
Positive emotion words: The more that people use positive emotion words (e.g. happy, love, good), the more optimistic they tend to be. If you feel good about yourself, you are more likely to see the world in a positive way.
Negative emotion words: Use of negative emotion words (e.g., sad, kill, afraid) is weakly linked to people's ratings of anxiety or even neurotic. People who have had a bad day are more likely to see the world through negatively-tinted glasses.
Big words (words with more than 6 letters): Use of big words is weakly related to higher grades and standardized test scores. People who use a high rate of big words also tend to be less emotional and oftentimes psychologically distant or detached.
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Research and uses:
- 1000's of research papers written on the TAT (i.e., reading compresion and the tat, patients with dissassociation taking the tat, children with psychosis…)
- Among the top 6(reported) tests by clinicians (Giersons).
- Utilized in governmental positions for screening (i.e., military, hospitals, etc).
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Critiscisms/Barreiers
- Language acquisition and through computer (writing/typing)
- Validity? Reliability? Some science-minded professionals argue:
Clinicians continuously fail to implement the test in the manner Murray
intended, thus jeopordizing Murray's validity
- Over patholigize, or misinterpretation
- Although, there have been many arguments against the "dated" drawings, they continued to be used. An attempt to use photographs was used but it was discovered the drawings elicity more details or "story"
- Some critics report gender bias.
- Cultural: Murray and other clinicians originally saw this as a cross cultural device (one of the few of the times), but some studies concocted describe cultural setbacks (i.e., Navaho men groups compared, little affect), there was a follow-up instrument geared toward cultural perspectives called "make a story"
My thoughts:
Use your judgement
Ask yourself, "what's my purpose?"
Check in with the client
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Children's version
Animal pictures for young children, rather than humans, administered orally versus written.
References
http://www.cssforum.com.pk/
Gieser, L., & Stein, M. I. (1999). An overview of the Thematic Apperception Test. In L. Gieser, M. I. Stein, L. Gieser, M. I. Stein (Eds.) , Evocative images: The Thematic Apperception Test and the art of projection (pp. 3-11). Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association. doi:10.1037/10334-016
Murray, H. A. (1935). Thematic Apperception Test.
http://www.utpsyc.org/TATintro/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thematic_Apperception_Test
