Storytelling, narrative, and the thematic apperception test

by Phebe Cramer

This volume is about a particular kind of storytelling: the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). A systematic approach to storytelling, it provides clinicians with an effective method for investigating those original and highly personal themes that constitute the unique personality of each individual. This book illuminates the meaning of narratives and explores their clinical implications by integrating a variety of interpretive approaches to the TAT that are informed by psychodynamic theory and empirical research. The book opens with an overview of the history and development of the TAT. Chapters discuss the importance of context in storytelling, and the relationship between the storyteller's narrative and the story interpreter's narrative in the process of explicating TAT stories. Several psychodynamically informed approaches to interpreting the TAT are placed in a narrative context and illustrated using stories from college students, children, and patients. The ways that stories transf