Use of the Rorschach in forensic settings for treatment planning and monitoring

Forensic psychiatric patients exhibit complex clinical issues that are neither readily understood by staff nor necessarily responsive to traditional psychotherapy or treatment milieu approaches. Individualized treatment planning identifies treatment needs and matches them to treatment services, thereby increasing the opportunity for a positive therapeutic outcome. The nature of the Rorschach, particularly that it bypasses volitional resources, enables observation and quantification of personality processes, making the Rorschach uniquely suited for treatment planning in forensic settings. In this article, the authors review relevant Rorschach literature, address the importance of incorporating Rorschach data into the assessment process, and discuss how Rorschach data fit into a thorough assessment that includes historical, clinical, dispositional, and contextual information. The authors offer two case examples to illustrate how Rorschach data are integrated in forensic treatment planning.