The Q-sort method in personality assessment and psychiatric research.

Abstract

Just about a dozen years ago William Stephenson, then teaching in the University of Chicago, introduced American psychology to his Q-technique. As doctorate researches and publications appeared out of various teaching centers, and especially following publication of Stephenson's book, the turbulence of controversy filled the air. The high and low pressures of warm enthusiasms and cold, or acerb, criticisms were in collision. The atmosphere has now quieted, and the time is appropriate for a calm exposition and evaluation of the Q-technique. This is what the book under review is achieving. Within a fairly small volume, as such expositions go, Block provides a helpful orientation to this method. It undertakes, he states, to devise a language instrument for describing a personality in psychodynamic terms so that it can be subjected to quantitative comparisons and analysis. The major portion of the book describes the theoretical foundations for Q-technique, surveys the