Projective assessment of Latinos in the United States: current realities, problems, and prospects

This article discusses the current status of projective assessment with Latino populations in the United States and suggests improvements in the quality of these services and in assessor cultural competencies. Major issues have included assessor bias, culturally inappropriate service delivery etiquette, psychometric inadequacies of many methods, and ignorance of relevant cultural issues in assessment practice, particularly cultural identity descriptions for personality study and cultural formulations to increase accuracy of clinical diagnoses. A rationale for projective assessment is followed by descriptions of several tests. Suggestions for reduction of bias include guidelines for projective assessment practice and recommendations for resources to improve reliability of interpretations. A research method that combines training with validation of the outcome of the entire assessment process is described.