PERSONALITY AND COLOUR

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32252, 21 March 1970, Page 4

PERSONALITY AND COLOUR

The Luscher Colour Test. Translated and edited by lan Scott. Based on the original German Text by Or Max Luscher. Jonathan Cape, 185 pp. (Reviewed by HR. (J.)

This book is in the form of a manual for a psychological test including the cards for conducting the shortened form of this assessment. The reviewer has tried to trace the usage of this device and has been able to find no mention of it in recognised psychological indexes and the references given at the back of the book are almost entirely from German publications, which is a little surprising when it is stated that the test was first launched in 1947

Dr Luscher is a Swiss psychologist who apart from his university work is employed as a colour consultant in various branches of packaging. It is no wonder that he has combined his practical and his academic interests into devising a personality test based on preference for different colours. His initial axiom is that “colour vision is related to both educated and primitive brain . . . and the distinguishing of colour and any aesthetic reactions to it are . . . the result of development and education rather than of instinct and reactive response.” By the patient simply arranging in this shortened test eight colours in his preference, the examiner can by some elementary mathematical calculations come to a personality diagnosis of the innocent per-

son in front of him who is unaware that he is being probed “at depth.” In fact the test gives us, according to Dr Luscher. “a wealth of information concerning the conscious and unconscious psychological structure of the individual, areas of psychic stress, the state of glandular balance and inbalance, and much physiological information of great value either to the physician or psychotherapist” The rationale behind this exercise is that each of the colours has been carefully chosen because of its particular psychological and physiological meaning, this being of universal significance and the same the world over. As an example, dark blue-like all four of the basic colours. “is a traumatic presentation of a basic biological need physiologically, tranquillity psychologically, contentment." The book warns against using this test as a parlour game because of the hidden information about people that it will reveal. Nevertheless, it is for sale not through a recognised test agency but from a book store. In this way it brings up the question of whether a reputable and professional psj chological test should be placed in the hands of the layman for use as a game, no matter how much advice to the contrary is given, or whether the scientific backing of the test is so slender that it can do no great harm anyway. In the opinion of this reviewer the latter is more the case.