Lüscher-Diagnostics

Every psychological theory that wants to understand man without his striving for meaning, without harmony, sees only partial aspects. It lacks the necessary order of meaning that belongs a priori to the essence of man. (Max Lüscher)

Max Lüscher's interest in physiognomics and the science of expression motivated him to study research methods intensively at the age of 16. The school psychologist and university lecturer for applied psychology Ernst Probst recognised his psychological talent. He encouraged him by giving him various tasks, such as investigating the significance of colour in the Rorschach test. This was the beginning of Lüscher's colour diagnostics. Until the first presentation of the colour test at the World Congress of Psychology in Lausanne in 1947, five years of intensive research work passed before he was able to conclude it in 1949 with his dissertation on "Colour as a Psychological Means of Examination". In his dissertation, he outlines in a few sentences the considerations on the choice of colour as a psychodiagnostic method of a personality test.

Colour as an instrument

Max Lüscher started from the principle that the appearance of colour is objective for human perception. Starting from this fact, he directed his interest to the individual experience of a certain colour appearance. With the help of categorical psycho-logic, he developed a method with which the objective meaning of the colour quality can be determined. Once the objective meaning is established, conclusions can be drawn about individual inclinations and needs based on the reactive behaviour of the individual. All test colours were categorically determined in this way.

If it can be determined in general and independent of culture that, for example, the test colour orange-red is perceived as stimulating and thus as active, in contrast to the calming effect of dark blue, which is perceived as passive, it can be used as an instrument in its objective psychological meaning. If the individual now experiences the actively perceived effect as more sympathetic than the passive one in the course of the test, statements can be made about the preferred behaviour patterns due to the similarity of the experiences, i.e. experiences of the same category. Put simply, the clear preference for active experiences allows statements to be made about the possible behaviours in specific life situations. In addition, the test also shows the degree of intensity of the preference, so that statements can also be made about the characteristics of the behaviour, such as the gradation from "engaged" to "aggressive, provocative" to "hysterical".

If it can be determined in general and independent of culture that, for example, the test colour orange-red is perceived as stimulating and thus as active, in contrast to the calming effect of dark blue, which is perceived as passive, it can be used as an instrument in its objective psychological meaning. If the individual now experiences the actively perceived effect as more sympathetic than the passive one in the course of the test, statements can be made about the preferred behaviour patterns due to the similarity of the experiences, i.e. experiences of the same category. Put simply, the clear preference for active experiences allows statements to be made about the possible behaviours in specific life situations. In addition, the test also shows the degree of intensity of the preference, so that statements can also be made about the characteristics of the behaviour, such as the gradation from "engaged" to "aggressive, provocative" to "hysterical".

The colours required for the test procedure were conceptually developed within the framework of structural functional psychology in clinical studies lasting several years. The advantage of non-verbal colour diagnostics lies in the spontaneous reaction of the test persons to a sufficiently known and familiar phenomenon - the appearance quality of the colour. Since the categories of psycho-logic are derived from the subject-object relation as a logical basic function, they capture all possible attitudes to the environment and fellow human beings as well as to oneself - and thus all modes of experience and behaviour.

Home I Imprint I Data protection I Copyright I Terms of use I GTCs I