Szondi test

1935 discredited psychological test

The Szondi test is a 1935 nonverbal projective personality test developed by Léopold Szondi.

Szondi analysis of destiny approach is based an anthropological preoccupation. Fate analysis of a patient is based on the test score, the patient medical history, and his family background through a genealogical tree. Fate analysis includes Genotropism, a form of depth psychology that had some prominence in Europe in the mid 20th century, but has been ignored for the most part. The starting assumption of fate analysis is that a person's life (destiny) unfolds in a series of elections: one chooses an occupation, acquaintances, partners, family, and ultimately his decisions implicitly selects his illnesses and his death. Szondi's experience in genealogy research led him to believe that these elections can not be considered only as the individual sovereign decision, but that such choices often follow certain patterns that preexisted within his family ancestors. Szondi concluded that some life choices are genetically inherited.

Szondi argued that his research showed that profession choices are determined by the dynamic and structure of the psyche, a phenomenon that he called operotropism. Most jobs can satisfy more than one drive need.

The work objects of the sadistic professions are animals, stone, iron, metal, machinery, soil, wood; the work circumstances are stall, slaughterhouse, animal breeding facilities, zoo, arena, mine, forest, mountain, operating theater, dissecting room; the main sensory perceptions are depth perception and muscle sense; work instruments are the primordial tools: ax, hatchet, pickaxe, chisel, hammer, drill, knife, whip; the work activity is big muscle work. Jobs of the schizoform, katatonic, drive striving k : aesthetician, art critic; accountant, lower officer, cartographer, technical drafter, graphic designer; postal worker, telegraph operator; printer; farmer, forester; lighthouse keeper, security guard; model. Personality traits found in this group are pedantry, accuracy, exemplarity; lack of humor, taciturnity, brusqueness; phlegm, callousness, calm; hypersensitivity; obstinacy, stubbornness; Inability to debate, self consciousness; narrow mindedness, bigotry; compulsiveness, automation, mannerisms; Feeling of omnipotence, autism; inability to be absorbed in the other (auto psychological resonance); taciturnity, immobility, all having. While those of the "Moses" striving e+ group include: priest, missionary woman, nun, monk, "protectress", public health doctor. Criminal, or most socially negative, epileptiform activities are kleptomania, pyromania, crime of passion, while the most socially positive are religious professions, health care provider, forensic pathology. displayed in six groups of eight each. All 48 subjects featured in the photographs are mental patients, each group containing a photo of a person whose personality had been classified as homosexual, a sadist, an epileptic, an hysteric, a katatonic, a paranoid, a depressive and a maniac. The subject is asked to choose the two most appealing and the two most repulsive photos of each group. The choices will supposedly reveal the subject satisfied and unsatisfied instinctive drive needs, and the subject's dimensions of personality. Each photo is supposed to be a stimulus apt to detect the pulsional drive tendencies of the examinee, from which the main personality traits can surface. Szondi further broke down the results into four different vectors: a homosexual/sadistic, epileptic/hysterical, catatonic/paranoid and depressive/manic. To interpret the test scores, a variety of methods have been developed by Szondi himself and other researchers. They can be classified as quantitative, qualitative and proportional methods.

Szondi said that from a sociological perspective, the most important discovery made through fate psychology has been operotropism, that is the discerning of the role played by latent inherited genes (genotropic factors) in the choice of a particular vocation or profession.

The Szondi test is a psychological exam named after its Jewish Hungarian creator, Léopold Szondi in the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest Hungary. The test was first formulated by Szondi around 1935. In 1944, Szondi published Schicksalsanalyse ("Fate analysis"), the first of a five volume series.

In 1960 Szondi began to collaborate with psychotherapeut Armin Beeli on 17 "forms of existence", divided in two main groups "forms of danger" (Gefährexistenzformen) and "forms of protection" (Schutzexistenzformen). On the basis of the syndromatics (diagnotisc method) published in book 3 (1952) and 4 (1956) of the Schicksalsanalyse, one or two (rarely three) forms of existence are detected from each test profile. First results of this research were published in 1963.

The Szondi test is not widely used in modern clinical psychology, because its psychometric properties are weak. However, it remains in the history of psychology as one of the well known psychological instruments, although its use today is marginal, being replaced by modern psychological instruments, with good psychometric properties.

Szondi Fate analysis has influenced philosophers Henri Niel, Alphonse De Waelhens and Henry Maldiney, and psychiatrist Jacques Schotte. In 1949, Susan Deri published the first English language description to the Szondi test. In 1959, the international Szondi Society was established, and holds a symposium every three years. In 1969, The Szondi Institute was formed, and published from Zurich the journal Szondiana. Artist Kurt Kren created a motion picture, 2/60 48 Köpfe aus dem Szondi Test, from the still shots of the Szondi test in 1964.

Szondi's main work is his five volume series on fate analysis (Schicksalsanalyse). They were first published from 1944 (volume one) to 1963 (volume five). The first two were later republished in multiple revised editions. They are:
Das erste Buch: Schicksalsanalyse. Wahl in Liebe, Freundschaft, Beruf, Krankheit und Tod. B. Schwabe, Basel, 1944. (2nd edition 1948, 3rd edition 1965, fourth edition 1978)
Das zweite Buch: Lehrbuch der Experimentellen Triebdiagnostik (Textband). Huber, Bern und Stuttgart, 1947. (1st edition 308pp, 2nd edition 1960 443pp, 3rd edition 1972 484pp) This is the book in which Szondi explains in details how to perform and interpret the test. Only the first edition, which would be completely overhauled in 1960, was translated into English as Experimental Diagnostics of Drives (1952). The 1972 third edition added a 40 page long appendix, that included a table to help determine the dangerous and the protective forms of existence. The Textband (text volume) is complemented by two additional (smaller) volumes, sold separately: Band 2: Testband, which contains the photographs and additional material to take the test, and Band 3: Trieblinnäus Band (classification of instincts). Das dritte Buch: Triebpathologie, also called and classified as Triebpathologie, Band I (Drive pathology, volume I), and subtitled Elemente der exakten Triebpsychologie und Triebpsychiatrie. Huber, Bern und Stuttgart, 1952. Composed of two parts: part A Elemente der exakten Triebpsychologie (Teil 1 Dialektische Trieblehre pp. 37–156, Teil 2 Dialektische Methodik pp. 159–234), and part B Elemente der exakten Triebpsychiatrie (Teil 3 Klinische Psychologie, Experimentelle Syndromatik pp. 237–509). Part A and B have been republished, with no changes (unverändert Auflage), in two separate volumes: Part A as Triebpathologie: Dialektische Trieblehre und dialektische Methodik der Testanalyse(1977, 234pp); part B as Triebpathologie: Elemente der exakten Triebpsychiatrie: Klinische Psychologie, experimentelle Syndromatik, Volume 1 (with unchanged page numbers). (1977, pp. 235–543)
Das vierte Buch: Ich Analyse, subtitled Die Grundlage zur Vereinigung der Tiefenpsychologie. Zweiter in sich abgeschlossener Band der Triebpathologie. Huber, Bern und Stuttgart, 1956. Das fünfte Buch: Schicksalsanalytische Therapie, subtitled Ein Lehrbuch der passiven und aktiven analytischen Psychotherapie. Huber, Bern und Stuttgart, 1963. (see pp. 157–170).

In 1963, after finishing the fifth volume, he published Introduction to Fate Analysis; it is a short book that collects conferences he held at the University of Zurich the previous year, with the aim of introducing to a larger public the most important results of his research. The conference collection was first published in French translation, as they were unpublished in German. A second tome of introductory conferences has also been published:
Introduction à l'analyse du destin. Tome I : Psychologie générale du destin, Translated by Claude van Reeth, 1972. Introduction à l'analyse du destin. Tome II : Psychologie spéciale du destin, 1983.