The Hermann Rorschach Archives and Museum

Short biography of Hermann Rorschach

Hermann Rorschach was born on 8th November 1884 in Zurich, the eldest of four children. In 1886 the family moved to Schaffhausen, where his father taught art at local schools. In 1897, at the age of twelve, he lost his mother and seven years later his father died after a long illness.

After finishing high school in 1904 he studied geology and botany at the Académie de Neuchâtel for one term and afterwards completed a course in French at the Université de Dijon. He entered the medical faculty of the University of Zurich in the autumn of 1904.

As a twenty-two year old he decided to become a psychiatrist. During the winter term 1906/1907 he studied in Berlin, from where he travelled to Russia for the first time. Following this he registered for one semester at the University of Berne and then continued his studies at the University of Zurich from which he graduated in the spring of 1909.

After his exams he travelled to Russia again and stayed there for several months. In late summer 1909 he commenced work as resident in the Thurgovian psychiatric hospital in Münsterlingen. In 1910 he married his fellow student Olga Stempelin from Kazan/Russia. His doctoral dissertation "Über Reflexhalluzinationen und verwandte Erscheinungen", supervised by Eugen Bleuler, was published in 1912. After a short interlude in 1913 at the psychiatric clinic in Münsingen (near Berne) Hermann and Olga Rorschach went to Russia, where he obtained a well-paid position in the fashionable Krjukovo asylum near Moscow.

Back in Switzerland in July 1914 he accepted a position as resident at the Waldau Psychiatric University Hospital near Berne. A year later he was appointed associate director of the asylum at Herisau, in the eastern part of Switzerland.

His book "Psychodiagnostik" was published in 1921. The method presented in it became world-famous as the “Rorschach Test”.

On 2nd April 1922 at the age of thirty-seven Hermann Rorschach died of a belatedly diagnosed appendicitis, leaving his wife and two small children.