In American psychology, it has been a joke. For decades, it has not been taught in any approved Clinical Psychology program.

Thank you for your answer. I know that projective tests have low acceptance because of psychometric background. (It's an another way of recognition.) Many thanks for your feedback once more.

It has never been part of a clinical methodology for assessment of psychopathology in the US. It is however of interest to persons with an appreciation for the history of psychodiagnostics. It is also very hard to find here!

Thank you. Susan Déri (she had Hungarian origin) published a book in New York "Introduction to the Szondi Test", Grune & Stratton, 1949. It contains very good psychodynamic interpretations of the Szondi test signs.

Szondi emigrated to Zürich, where he developed his test and fate-analytical theory. His view is part of depth psychology (familial unconscious).

I am surprised to see that people still use it. I only show it (if at all) in the "how not to …" section in my lectures

We use it in clinical psychology and other fields of applied psychology as well. For example it is an accepted method in the process of judicial expertises. In my opinion it is a good tool if one knows the theory behind the test and can think in that way. Projective tests can show the psychodinamic background of personality. In July there will be an international congress in Brussels on the Szondi test and theory. There are colleagues in other countries who also use it.

Something more, it is possible to modernize the view, e.g. we needn't speak about drives (like instincts) but inner incitements, motivations, and so on.

I saw a copy once. But my then-supervisor (who owned it) considered it to be akin to tarot cards or I Ching coins. This is not to say that projective tests generally have poor reliability or validity. I think the evidence is that they vary widely. A properly administered and scored Rorschach, TAT, or Sentence Completion conveys real information, and some of the projective drawings (HFD, for example) are also useful. [It is true, alas, that the TAT still lacks a universally accepted scoring system, and that many clinicians still avoid taking the trouble to master and apply the scoring systems that do exist.] But the Szondi, as others have remarked, is usually cited as one of the great failures of projective testing.

Thank you very much for your reply. Do you mean the ten-profiles taking up and the method of the quantitative and qualitative evaluation? We use that version.

One more information, on the internet there are some Szondi Test software programs with the test's photos. They are pirated programs without copyright, the Szondi Institute has the copyright of the test's photos (in Zürich). The test's photos are usually of poor quality.

The program of the XXth Anniversary Congress of the International Szondi Association,

14-17. July, 2014

Brussels, Belgium

http://home.scarlet.be/cep/ROMAE/ISA2014/congres%20ISA%202014%20programme.html

Thank you for posting this! It will, I think, surprise many American psychologists to learn that such an active group exists. I will say, though, that most of the papers seem to be about Szondi's broader theories of personality; only about a third concern the test that bears his name. Still, that's four more papers on the Szondi test than have been presented at American conferences in the last generation!

Thank you for your remarks. Beside the test Szondi has a theory about fate-analysis (third direction of depth psychology), he invented the "familial unconscious". At the conference there were presentations about the theory, test, practice, and new methods as well. 

It was used in assessment at the forensic institute I am working at. It was a nice surprise to find it there. Unfortunately the people who would know how to use it have retired. 

Thank you very much, it is very interesting. Today I have just been at a radio interview in Budapest, where the topic was Szondi's theory and the test. If you are interested in Szondi feel free to contact me. 

 I have my own copy of the test, and the available literature in Spanish and English. Szondi's theory and test are both complex, but so is personality. A Swidish author has come up with a simplified version of the theory and his own test which can be potentially helpful in psychotherapy, coaching, vocational counseling and human resources applications. And the work of Jaako Borg in Finnland makes a good job to put both the test and the theory in perspective in the 2000s and beyond. Personally, I'd love to participate in some research, but the American psychological establishment is tremendously driven by the evidence-based movement. In the meantime I celebrate that in other cultural, academic and professional contexts some people keep up doing some work about Szondi's ideas.

… seeing that evidence-based is used here as something negative is quite indicative.  I can only repeat that current textbooks on assessment use the Szondi Test as an example of "how not to it" and that's a quite good assessment from my point of view. 

The programme of the XXIst Congress of the International Szondi Association, Budapest (Hungary), 2017.

Once again, it is interesting to see so much activity in an area I would have thought extinct long ago - though also once again, it looks like only about one presentation in four relates directly to the test in question. One would like to see the actual results of some validity studies.

There was enough time to bring validity studies -- and there do not seem to be any. Once again, move on. Look for measures that can be scored/administered/interpreted objectively, that are reliable, and were validity is given.

This is the first time I heard about this test. From the looks of it based on my reading, it appears that it is culture-specific. How can you assess it's validity with regard to people of other races/ethnitues, particularly folks in poorer parts of the world who have not traveled to the developed Western countries, and who have no experience interacting with Westerners? Many of the test's component constructs also reminded me of Freud's ideas

Thank you very much for your reflection. It's a projective test, but there are studies on the topic, I attach one of them which can be an answer for Jimmy Y. Zhong about the cultural differences.

Well, I catch up late... I did not know about researchgate. I heard about it in June this year, when it was the 50th jubilee of the Szondi Institute in Zürich. I am the Swede, who @Gonzalo Vazquez-Casals mentioned above. I have no personal experience from the Szondi test. I only know from psychotherapists they have good use from the test. I came instead across Szondi's personality theory via a Szondi-based test for vocational guidance - the BBT, BerufsBildertest developed by the Swiss Martin Achtnich. He had the opinion that the theory can be useful in vocational guidance, which was his area. Then he said to Szondi: But your test will frighten young people! Szondi replied: Then develop a photo based test with a man or woman in occupational situations. Martin did, so now there are at least versions of the test for Switzerland, Brazil and Poland.

However, there was no questionnaire based on Szondi's theory, so I developed that 1986. We tested and it worked well. The application area was and is more and more much wider than BBT. I simplified the theory - as Martin, so I used "normal" words for the eight dimensions e.g. Power instead of s (sadism). Szondi worked clinically, so he used the illness words, i.e. the extreme position of the normal behaviour for a human being e.g. to get results, be straight-forward, etc. My objective was that the Szondi-based concept should be easy to use for the layman in order to improve their self-knowledge and ability to cooperate with other people.

Today 2019 the test is available in 14 languages - from Swedish to Chinese. Finnish is under development. The test is most used in Brazil, where my partners have done between 2010-2019 done 500,000 tests with their IT-system (in Portuguese). In Brazil the HumanGuide test was 2009 the first internet-based personality test with forced-choice to be approved by the authority SATEPSI. Since the first validation study (with 16PF) it has been done three more studies. The last 2016 was based on 110,000 tests. All with good psychometric results.

In Brazil one of my cooperation partners are using the HG test in research. I have recently said yes to use the HG test in research for screening of pregnant women - to be complementary to blood tests and similar - so far only a proposal.

More information on my website humanguide.com or rh99.com.br

Thank you very much for your addition to the topic, Rolf!

I wish you lot of success in your work!

Thank you @Enikö Csilla Kiss. You know I am the type, who "likes" problems, because then there is something to solve. Because of your question here you and more or of us "Szondians" identified some problems and some is really big challenges, so now we need to handle them. One thing I really have learnt in life is that you need to be persistent. You know I have worked with this since 1975! At first learning the theory. Then I started to develop the questionnaire 1986. Why I don't give up? The main reason is that Leopold Szondi's (1893-1986) personality theory is the most useful I know. Compare e.g. with personality tests based on the Big five model. There is no theory behind that. It is only observations and statistics. Moreover, it is based on five basic dimensions, but Szondi's theory has eight basic dimensions. Much more nuances!

After using Szondi's theory during many years you will also notice how practical it is to understand people's personality - or better their drives. My conclusion is that the way Szondi discovered his theory shaped a natural structure, which is easy to relate to.

What to do then? There is of course a lot to do in order to improve the reputation of Szondi's theory, so more people discover how useful it is. Based on the discussion here, because of your question, I will start a discussion "How to improve the reputation of Szondi's theory?" - that is the core! I will do that in our group at Linkedin "The Szondi Forum" and hopefully more Szondians will contribute. We shouldn't only describe the problems and complain. We need to solve the problems. One by one. And be persistent!

Thank you @ Rolf Kenmo for this uplifting view of a very interesting scientist as Sondi Lipót was. We shouldn’t forget that that time he created the test there were no sophisticated research instruments as today. For me his study of the family unconscious and of the transgenerational transmission of traits, abilities, problem solving models in a family are more interesting. I will check your forum on LinkedIn.

Thank you too Judith Teszáry In my opinion Szondi was very intuitive. Therefore, I hope in the long run, that step by step his very useful theory will be recognised by more people in the world. My vision is that it should be in the end as a common way to describe people's drives as it is in companies, where they use the HumanGuide concepts.

You know many psychologists like personality tests based on the big five model, but you know there is no theory behind. It is only based on statistics, so it can describe how people acts, but not why! That is possible if you uses Szondi's theory. That is also why I am persistent doing my work;-)

By the way... I thought that it fits here to give praise to my two cooperation partners in Brazil. Their work makes great support for the knowledge about Szondi's theory - at least in Brazil, but also in Portugal, because of all connections between these countries.

I have already told above that they with their "HumanGuide system" have done 500,000 tests. They are also positioning their service as high quality, because the HumanGuide test was the first of its kind to be approved 2009 in Brazil by the authority SATEPSI http://satepsi.cfp.org.br. Today.they have more than 800 psychologists using their test service. More information at RH99.com.br.

I was recently in Brazil celebrating 20 year of cooperation. We had one seminar at the Swedish Brazilian Chamber of Commerce in Sao Paulo, which was very much appreciated - about how to succeed with diversity in teams. Then we had one two day seminar for HumanGuide users. 50 persons at a waiting list... We got standing ovations, when we ended the seminar, so now we have energy for some more years of HumanGuide work;-)

I send you a document about Szondi test.

good luck for your reseach.