A preliminary Rorschach investigation of psychological conflict and interpersonal experience in felons committing crimes against people and against property

The purpose of this study was to investigate differences in measures of psychological conflict and interpersonal experience between felons committing crimes against people and against property. The instrument used was Rorschach's test. The variables compared were psychosexual drive expressions and motivational valuation as measured by the Burstein-Loucks comprehensive Rorschach scoring system (1989). Results demonstrated a significant difference in psychosexual drive conflict and benevolent interpersonal expectations between the groups. There was no significant difference between the groups with respect to malevolent expectations. The results demonstrating felons committing crimes against people display a higher amount of psychological conflict and benevolent interpersonal experiences suggest a lack of psychological development. The results are discussed in terms of the fixation/regression model of mental development (Fenichel, 1945) and the concept of "splitting" (Kernberg, 1975).