Museum & Collections
The world’s largest public collection of standardised projective instruments
The Institute maintains a museum collection of standardised projective assessment instruments spanning eight decades of methodological development. All materials are housed in climate-controlled, restricted-access archival facilities at the Institute’s Zürich premises. Access to certain collections requires institutional affiliation, ethics review approval, and a documented research purpose. The collection is not open to the general public.
Provenance
The Institute’s collection has been assembled through five primary channels over the course of its history: direct donation from retiring clinicians and researchers, institutional transfers from university psychology departments that concluded their projective assessment programmes, acquisitions from private collections identified through the Institute’s professional network, commissions of new stimulus materials produced to the Institute’s archival specifications, and the Institute’s own research production during its active programme (1967–2012).
All accessioned materials are accompanied by provenance documentation. Where provenance is incomplete or contested, the material is held in a restricted-access sub-collection pending further research. The Institute does not acquire materials whose provenance cannot be reasonably established.
Collection Categories
Standardised Instruments
The Institute holds exemplars, variants, and in many cases complete protocol sets for the following standardised projective instruments. Each entry includes the approximate date range of the materials held and a note on their condition and completeness.
The collection spans the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT, 1935 onwards, approx. 2,400 items), the Holtzman Inkblot Technique (approx. 1,800 items), the Children’s Apperception Test (approx. 900 items), the Blacky Pictures Test (approx. 400 items), Sentence Completion Tests (approx. 600 items), the Draw-A-Person Test (approx. 350 items), and a heterogeneous collection of regional and specialist instruments (approx. 1,100 items).
Digital Archive & Preservation
Since 2019, the Institute has been systematically digitising archival materials in partnership with J. B. Fowler (Precision Stimuli). The digitisation process involves high-resolution spectral scanning, colour calibration against physical reference standards, and rigorous quality assurance against original specimens.
As of the most recent audit, 3,204 of the Institute’s 12,847 holdings have been digitised. Priority is given to materials at risk of physical degradation and to those requested for remote research access. Further information on the digitisation programme →
Standardised Instruments — Detailed Catalogue
- Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) · 1935 onwards. Multiple editions, including first-edition plates (1943) and international adaptations. Approx. 2,400 items including administration manuals and scoring guides.
- Holtzman Inkblot Technique · Original protocols and variants, including the complete set of 45 parallel-form blots. Approx. 1,800 items.
- Children’s Apperception Test (CAT) · 1949 onwards. Includes the Human Figure modification (CAT-H). Approx. 900 items.
- Blacky Pictures Test · 1950 onwards. Original 11-card set plus later extended versions. Approx. 400 items.
- Sentence Completion Tests · Multiple instruments, including the Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank and the Washington University Sentence Completion Test. Approx. 600 items.
- Draw-A-Person Test · 1949 onwards. Includes the Goodenough-Harris revision. Approx. 350 items.
- Regional and Specialist Instruments · A heterogeneous collection of instruments developed for specific populations, languages, or clinical contexts. Approx. 1,100 items. Cataloguing in progress.
Conservation
All collection materials are stored under controlled environmental conditions. The Institute maintains climate specifications of 18°C (±1°C) and 45% relative humidity (±3%) across all storage vaults. Materials designated as chemically unstable are stored in inert containers under additional monitoring. Handling is restricted to trained archival staff and is governed by documented protocols last revised in 2023.
The Institute maintains a condition monitoring schedule for all holdings. Materials rated as ‘Fair’ or below on the Institute’s internal condition scale are placed under enhanced monitoring and, where resources permit, conservation treatment. The Institute does not restore materials to a condition that obscures their history of use—conservation is archival, not cosmetic.
Collection Statistics
| Total holdings | 12,847 |
| Digitised | 3,204 |
| Restricted access | 1,186 |
| Under conservation | 47 |
| Pending cataloguing | 312 |
Methodology
The classification of materials in the Institute’s collection is governed by the Croft Classification System, first published in 1971 and revised in 1978, and the Full Inkblot Matrix (FIM-800), developed by Dr. Helena M. Voss during the period 1973–1977. Together, these systems provide a comprehensive taxonomy of projective stimulus properties across 47 response dimensions.
The FIM-800 was designed for the classification of inkblot stimuli in clinical research settings. The Institute is aware that its classification framework has been applied by third parties to non-clinical domains, including natural formation taxonomy. The Institute has not validated the FIM-800 for any domain beyond its original clinical research purpose. Full methodology references in the Reading Room →