We were prepared for the emphasis on clinical, forensic and educational psychology and were duly humbled by the quietly-spoken, reserved but also insightful and well qualified public sector clan who made up the majority of the attendance.
But what did come as quite a surprise to us was the realization that the workshop was an attempt to restitute the reputation of projective techniques. Perhaps we qualitative researchers did not realise our respondents were having so much fun with a maligned and part-redundant technique!
The Journal of Projective Psychology had folded in 1988, and since then, the Rorschach technique, and the ORT have been fighting hard, with limited success, to justify their inclusion in psychological assessment.
Their argument focuses on the value of noting "the internal working model, the template of future relationships, the depth of attachment and the nature of the anxieties" of the studied individual. The increasing use of neuro-psychology to locate the time, if not the nature, of trauma, is being harnessed in its defence.
None of this ascription which humans put on objects will come as any surprise to qualitative researchers. It is perhaps the clinically rigorous structured method of interpretation from which we can learn the most - as well as the testing, over time, in order to detect change, of personification attributes of a brand - a strategic rather than tactical use.
The workshop was weakened by the absence of the much-mentioned detractors of projective techniques and the day had a muted and disengaged feeling to it which I find prevalent in public sector forums and which, again and again, makes me appreciate the more extrovert and challenging environment of our own industry.
The coup de grace, however, was the revelation that, within some prisons, the length of custody of an inmate can be dependent on the interpretation of his/her figure drawings.
This made me worry a lot less about the reliability and validity of my own practice, but to worry a lot more about the drawing doodles I leave in briefing meetings all over the country!
Ailean Mills