Showing posts with label Justinus Kerner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Justinus Kerner. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Kleksographien, Justinus Kerner and me...





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A comment by a friend on this drawing of mine, made me search for images of a favourite Justinus Kerner (1786-1862) a poet,physician and "Kleksograph" from Weinsberg, Germany.


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Here’s a portrait of Kerner with a portrait of Prince Adalbert of Bavaria hanging in the background, a close friend whom he had a comprehensive correspondance with, which dealt with topics such as clairvoyance, somnambulism and occultism, which i’d love to find! in the photo there is also a copy of the book "Kleksographien" (ink blots and their interpretation, the first recorded discussion) .


Kerner created his "Klesographien"  through the numerous blots on his letters and with wine :)

"In the beginning of the 20th century Hermann Rorschach adapted them to develop a projective test, which was named after him.Hermann Rorschach was a Swiss-born physician whose first and only manuscript
about this test, Psychodiagnostik, published in June 1921, described the
Rorschach procedure that he developed between 1909 and 1913 as a psychiatric
resident at Munsterlingen Mental Hospital in Russia. His procedure for exploring
perceptual and psychological processes was influenced by, among other
things, the Word Association Test that was developed by psychoanalyst Carl
Jung. In his early studies Rorschach compared the responses of psychotic patients
on Jung’s Association Test with those on the inkblot "test" and concluded
that the two tests were tapping somewhat different psychological processes.
Rorschach did not conceive of his technique as a "test" per se but as an empirically
based tool for differentiating the responses of varied groups, including
mentally retarded, schizophrenics, and other groups with known characteristics.
He believed that perceptual processes—how people organize and structure
what they see—are closely linked to aspects of the human psyche. Since the
major symptoms demonstrated by schizophrenics, the clinical population with
which he worked, involve disorders of thought and perception, it follows that
Rorschach would explore procedures to gain better insight into this disorder.
According to Ellenberger (1954), Rorschach saw himself first and foremost
as a scientist and was most interested in pursuing a career in clinical research,
not clinical practice. His development of the inkblot technique was
empirically based. So, it is of interest to note, that some of the strongest critics
of the Rorschach are those in academia and proponents of empirically
based diagnostic and treatment techniques who view the Rorschach technique
as not empirically based."

Anyway to get back to Justinus here some images from the above book,


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