Hermann Rorschach’s (1884–1922) Clinical and Scientific Work as a Psychiatrist in Russia

Abstract

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the death of the Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach, the famous creator of an inkblot projective test. This article examines an insufficiently studied period of Rorschach's work in Russia in 1913–1914 and aims to reconstruct his clinical and scientific activities at that time. Rorschach worked in the psychoneurological sanatorium in Kryukovo near Moscow where he treated his patients with psychotherapy. During that period, he came in contact with leading psychiatrists and became a part of the Russian psychoanalytic community. Case histories of Rorschach's patients did not reveal any original approaches in his psychotherapeutic methods. Despite his lack of time for scientific work, he still coedited one of the leading psychiatry journals in Russia, Issues of Psychiatry and Neuropathology, where he published an article on the organization of services for mental health in Switzerland. Moreover, he contributed to the transfer of knowledge by publishing reviews of his Russian colleagues’ works in German journals.