APA Historical Database: Selected Entries

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On November 8:

1884 — Hermann Rorschach was born. Rorschach developed the famous inkblot-style projective personality test. The test is widely used despite questionable validity. The test is so well-known that it has become a popular icon for all of clinical psychology. Constructed in 1911, the test was not published until 1921. Rorschach's fraternity nickname, "Klex," means "inkblot" in German.

1892 — Therese Friedman Benedek was born. Benedek was a psychoanalyst who specialized in the psychology of women, especially the physiology of the sexual cycle. Her book, Psychosexual Functions in Women, is a classic.

1908 — The first course in vocational counseling was offered by Ralph Albertson, of the Vocation Bureau of Boston. The course was sponsored by the Boston YMCA and organized by Frank Parsons, founder of the vocational guidance movement. Classes were originally scheduled to begin on October 5, 1908, but Parsons died on September 26. The classes were "to fit young men to become vocation counsellors and manage vocation bureaux . . . anywhere in the country."

1935 — Norman R. F. Maier and Theodore C. Schneirla's Principles of Animal Psychology was published.

1943 — The standard form of Henry A. Murray's Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) was published. An earlier form of the TAT appeared in a 1935 article in the Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry, written by Christiana D. Morgan and Murray.

1983 — The first genetic test for Huntington's disease was announced by molecular biologist James Gusella and other researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital. They had roughly located the genetic marker for the disorder on the fourth chromosome. Huntington's disease is a progressive nervous disorder named for Long Island physician George Huntington, who first described it in 1872.

1990 — The first International Congress of Health Psychology began in Mexico City.

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