Stability of unusual verbalizations on the Rorschach for outpatients with schizophrenia

Rorschach protocols of 50 outpatients with schizophrenia who had been tested twice with an average interval of 6.4 years between administrations were scored blind by graduate students trained to detect Unusual Verbalizations (UVs). Scoring reliabilities were excellent and ranged from .93 to .99 for the WSUM6. There were no significant differences between mean group UV scores obtained at the first testing (T1) and the second testing (T2), which attests to the persistence of thought disorder in schizophrenia. The correlations between T1 and T2 testings were, however, modest at best. Deviant Verbalizations, the least pathological of the UV categories, showed the highest test-retest relationship at .50. Tentative explanations for these findings were advanced.