Assessing Aggressivity with the Comprehensive System-Revised, Part I: The Rorschach Gacono & Meloy Extended Aggression Scores: An Updated Review

Authors

Carl B. Gacono, Maverick Psychology Training and Consultation PLLCFollow
Jason M. Smith, Pierpont Community and Technology CollegeFollow

Abstract

Determining a patient's aggressivity is a function of assessing multiple factors, including personality vulnerabilities, past behaviors, and potential future circumstances. Evaluating the nature and predominance of aggressive drive, impulse control, affect lability, inhibitory mechanisms, cognitive deficits, and conscious and unconscious attitudes (e.g., use of devaluation; the presence of internal identifications and imagery) is essential. All of these issues have correlates in the Comprehensive System (CS; Exner, 2003; also CS-R; Fontan & Andronikof, 2022) and supplemental Rorschach data (primitive defenses: Cooper et al., 1988; Lerner & Lerner, 1980; object relations phenomena: Kwawer, 1980; extended aggression scores: Gacono & Meloy, 1994). Pre-Oedipal personality organization and primitive object relations also imply attitudes toward others that are derogatory or distorted (all linked to aggressivity; Rose & Bitter, 1980). Coding of aggressive Rorschach imagery is essential but insufficient in understanding aggressivity. Part I of this two-article series discusses the origins, development, reliability, and validity of Gacono & Meloy's Extended Aggression Scores (AgScores, 1994; Aggressive Content [AgC], Aggressive Past [AgPast], Aggressive Potential [AgPot], Aggressive Vulnerability [AgV], and Sado-Masochism [SM]; see also Gacono & Smith, 2022).

Recommended Citation

Gacono, Carl B. and Smith, Jason M. (2022) "Assessing Aggressivity with the Comprehensive System-Revised, Part I: The Rorschach Gacono & Meloy Extended Aggression Scores: An Updated Review," Archives of Assessment Psychology: Vol. 12, Article 7.
Available at: https://nsuworks.nova.edu/psyassessment/vol12/iss1/7