The test was designed in the 20th century by the Hungarian psychiatrist Leopold Szondi.

The aim was to explore the deepest repressed impulses of a person on the basis of sympathy or aversion caused by the specific photos of psychopaths. The Szondi test is based on the general notion that the characteristics that bother us in others are those that caused aversion to ourselves at an early stage of our life and that’s why we repress them.

Here are some psychology terms you need to know before starting the test:

Repression: According to the psychoanalytic concept, this is the most important psychological defense mechanism we have. Its most important function is to transfer thoughts and desires we are uncomfortable with to our unconscious.

Denial: It is a mental process by which we absolutely refuse our deepest impulses (ie things we want), adopting the exact opposite pattern of the desired behavior.

Sublimation: the process of transfer of our repressed choices, states, or behaviors to the ones that are socially acceptable or useful, such as artistic activities, hobbies, professional choices, harmless little habits, etc.

Instructions

Look at the portraits of these eight people and choose the one you would never want to meet at night in the dark because his or her appearance causes disgust and fear in you. Then read the interpretation that corresponds to the number of the portrait you chose.

Szondi test

IMPORTANT: Please don’t misinterpret the results of the test, which don’t imply that you have a kind of mental disorder, since the test was designed to make an assumption about the possible repressed impulses of each type of personality in accordance with the psychoanalysis theory.

The original test included 6 sets of 8 portraits of people, each of whom had been classified as homosexual, a sadist, an epileptic, a hysteric, a catatonic, a schizophrenic, a depressive, and a maniac. Here is a minor version of the test, which includes only one set of portraits, since it is very difficult to provide the full version of it with all the possible interpretations in one blog post.

Interpretations

1) Sadist

Repression

You are likely to have repressed some experiences from the first years of life associated with authoritarianism in your behavior, a need to dominate and a propensity for bad intentions. If you chose the portrait of this teacher may have repressed some offensive or demeaning to other behaviors in your unconscious.

Denial

You are likely to be a completely harmless and peaceful creature, always ready to help others. If you are an office worker, your superiors may find it difficult to handle you. When you do not want to do something, you create barriers (for example, getting late to work or showing that you are in a bad mood). Often, when you have to defend yourself, you choose passive resistance and defiance, which in the long term exhaust those who created problems for you.

2) Epileptic

Repression

When we talk about personality disorders associated with brain disease, damage, and dysfunction (as occurs in some cases of epilepsy), some of the diagnostic features can be impulsiveness, irritability, outbursts of anger, and aggression. If this stout gentleman with a round head caused revulsion and fear in you, it is likely that early in your childhood you repressed some of such feelings and behaviors to your subconscious.

Denial

It is most likely that you are a kind and peaceful person. Being meek and friendly, you give the impression of a responsible and self-controlled person. You are stable in your feelings and easily bond with people, ideas, and objects.

3) Catatonic

Repression

Some features of this mental disorder are the excessive stimulation of imagination and cognition in general and negativism. If this unshaven but smiling gentleman caused negative feelings in you, you may have repressed some hyperactivity of your mind, which could make you lose touch with reality if it had not been transferred to your unconscious.

Denial

You tend to adopt stereotypical behaviors and do not like innovations and changes. Maybe you’re the type of timid and diffident person, who finds it particularly difficult to adapt to new situations. Your biggest fear is to lose self-control. You are a bit stiff, often defensive and perhaps inhibited person who never deviates from the ‘behavior codex’.

4) Schizophrenic

Repression

The schizophrenic personality is characterized by intense apathy, distortions of thought, and incompatible emotions. If this impassive gaze and poker face gave you goosebumps, you probably repressed a feeling of indifference towards others and withdrawal from things and events at an early stage of your childhood.

Denial

You are probably quite a sociable person. You believe in socializing and communicating with others, enjoying hanging out with others and going out often. The sociability is rather misleading and perhaps hides an isolated person who lives with the feeling of being always alone. Your relationships may seem impersonal and superficial as if they lack the true feeling. Deep down, you may feel that you do not need others and coexistence with them.

5) Hysteric

Repression

Some personality traits of hysterical people are superficial and unstable emotions, narcissism, and exhibitionism. If you chose this strange lady with heavy eyelids as the person that scares you most of all, maybe it’s because you have repressed an insatiable desire to captivate attention and a thirst for approval.

Denial

You give the impression of a modest person with intense inwardness. However, in reality, seeming a quiet and shy person, you may be possessed of an overpowering and excessive desire to charm others. You meticulously take care of your appearance and behavior. For example, you always try to be elegant and well-dressed, complementing your clothes with accessories that attract the attention of others.

Sublimation

Such people are likely to choose a rare/extravagant profession or hobby.

6) Depressive

Repression

Lack of self-esteem, feelings of inferiority, and guilt are the main symptoms of depression. The fact that this harmless being is an incarnation of aversion for you may mean that you are a deeply depressed person who manages to have these symptoms under control.

Denial

Perhaps you are an outgoing and carefree person. You always show dynamism, confidence and optimism. Sometimes, of course, you get upset and can manifest dysthymia and melancholy (“sad clown syndrome”). You can also be suspicious and morose.

Sublimation

It is very likely that shift your depressive tendencies to assuming the role of everybody’s psychologist, searching for solutions to other people’s problems.

7) Maniac

Repression

Some diagnostic features of mania are extroversion, overstimulation, overestimation of self and a waste of money and emotions. If this kind face seems disgusting to you, it probably means that inside you there is a kind of excitement which, if not controlled, would transform you into a fanatic mystic.

Denial

You are very likely to be a person who does not want to provoke with his/her behavior and who detests noise, extremes and excesses. You are an example of discretion, restraint, and measure. Being logical and thrifty, you always have a fully controlled behavior.

8) Dissociative identity disorder

Repression

This kind of personality is expressed in a person’s desire to live and be accepted as a member of the opposite sex. If this young man seems dangerous and depraved to you, perhaps early in your childhood you repressed an identity problem or more specifically a problem about your gender identity.

Denial

If the defense mechanism of denial worked, you may have a tendency to emphatically confirm your biological sex. In this case, your behaviors, manners, and appearance emphasize that you are a real man or a real woman. If you’re a man, you are very “macho”, and if you are a woman, you always try to look sexy and seek to flirt and attract men.


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This Post Has 96 Comments

  1. Katyayini

    I wasn’t particularly more scared for any particular portrait 🙁 what should I do? Am I little of everything mentioned?

  2. Desi_girl

    Wow. So true!I picked 4 and the denial statement was spot on. Creepy.

  3. yukachino

    you are confusing me. I cant just coclude that reality basically doesnt exist but the one we generate in our brain, and then I see my result from the test above which says that i “lost touch with reality”… what was I to make out of all that…

  4. sara

    soooo wrong

  5. Lopez cano

    Creepy

  6. Nima Javan

    Nope!
    ain’t working at all!
    Gosh! watching someone at midnight while lying on bed, even if that’s a heavenly angel scares anyone!
    but i tried no.2 and i was totally wrong!
    anyway!
    scared me alill, now it’s midnight and twice i checked the lock of my door, thinkin what if that guy arrives in right now! creeepy!

  7. alice

    mine was 1 true to me

  8. randy

    fuck this one i choose no. 4 denial statement really got me .. im socialize but i feel im alone some kind of i dont need them .. but any way im a real good friend promise .. 🙂

  9. anas

    duh I picked No 4 …that woman really freaked me out,well that’s what most people tell me that i am indifferent..i feel most of time that i don’t need people but life showed me the opposite ..we need each other cz we’re not perfect .but hey maybe that woman (no 4) is a funny person in a bad mood hhhh

  10. Diana

    #4 COMPLETELY freaked me out (reminded me of my deceased manic depressive/bipolar mom on one of her many bad days 😞). Denial portion very true to me. I’m an Aquarius & we are notorious for being known as ‘extroverted introverts’,so the conflict in the Denial statement makes perfect sense to me. I’ve finally learned to embrace the feeling of ‘lonliness’ by accepting IT’S OK to not NEED to have someone in my life.

    1. 29219

      same here, but i am Pisces

    2. Billie Miller

      #4 and it completely describes me! Also an Aquarius….left me speechless!

  11. Matt

    These are the kinds of tests that make you lose sleep; so i won’t take it. But I will say I read the schizophrenic part, and it rings true to me, although it’s not really repressed: I’m aware of this juxtaposition of feelings in me. The aversion to socializing, yet the intense need to.

    1. Mylo

      Me too- the yearning to meet, get to know and love others but the deepest thought/feeling to rather not bother and distance yourself is a constant pull

  12. michelle

    i choose #5 cuz well i find she is the creepiest, but while some of the analysis is right it is overall wrong, for me anyway, i am not wholly superficial, but i do she it sometimes, i am not a narcissist,i do have unstable emotions at times, i may be bi-polar, i have mood swings, but i most definitely am not an exhibitionist, well i admit maybe i have repressed a thirst for approval, but i have my reason, though i’m not quite sure i have, but probably, i most definitely do not give off modesty, lol, most people think i dress slutty,i curse, i talk about sex, i say what is on my mind most of the time, i am quiet and shy unless i know or really like a person, i do not try to charm people i couldn’t care less what strangers think about me, elegant yea right, well dressed well i put on clean clothes, whatever suiots my mood at the time, i really don’t even care if it matches, actually most of the time i sit around in my pajama’s and accessories, you mean like jewelry or a purse, i just grab whatever i need i really don’t have a purse an i don’t wear jewelry, and well i don’t have a profession or job, but i would like to be an author, not sure how rare that is, an my hobby’s include watching tv an being online, an somewhat collecting thing, like coloring books or pens an pencils, not very rare, i am a Pisces, and female, not sure why overall this was wrong for me but it was, i was also creeped out a little by 6 as well but number 5 is the one that mostly caught my attention

  13. jake

    1 and 6 i didn’t like them, i don’t believe exactly i have these symptoms. though most of time i kinda feel like that comparing myself to people better than me the need of success and passionately do something. i couldn’t find the useful thing i love to do . not yet. i’m rushing myself and eating myself out from inside to find something useful to do . when i was at school that feeling was less . now i graduated i have more responsibilities and more time anxiety. i like to learn stuffs i have lots of scientific interests but when i try to learn online i get bored . can’t continue normally .i guess i need a coach or mentor.

  14. Fatemeh

    It is not true of me.

  15. V

    What if none caused any of those?

  16. Sid

    So predictable.. if you have fear and disgust then you must have all ngative traits,though they may be bas d on past experience
    I had no fear and disgust of anyone so i am not any one of these profiles..hehe
    It tells more about the test creator rather than the test taker.
    Why not give the person the option to not choose a pic

  17. G

    #4 looks like she performs cannibalism! Not only that, but she has no strong positive or negative emotions about it either. You see her eating the remains of somebody in broad daylight, it is what is is to her. She wouldn’t even try to run away.

  18. Megan

    So far 3 people in my family have taken the test. And all three were accurate. !!

  19. Robert

    # 6 – Everything was accurate in describing current states mind I’m experiencing.

  20. wahid

    It fits me– #2. Thanks.

  21. A

    I know this test is no longer deemed reliable but it proved fairly accurate in my case. I picked no 3 and, unfortunately, the description seems to fit me very well. Funnily enough, another source I looked at suggested keeping a journal to help deal with self -imposed restrictions. I started one several years ago (just because I could, not as a form of therapy of any kind) but when I read it now, I can see how restricted and self-censored it actually is. I’m doomed, I guess 😉

  22. Ria Ward

    Is there something wrong if I cannot pick one? None of them made me feel threatened somehow.

    1. Michele santiago

      I didn’t see your comment before I posted. But I felt the same ,None of the pictures bothered me..lol. I wonder what that means?

    2. Shawn

      Same here

  23. Michele santiago

    What does it mean If i didn’t find any of the pictures creepy, I wasn’t creeped out by any of the pictures!

  24. Rebecca

    5 is not completely right. I read something about the original theory and, if I remember well, aversion to the hysteric means an actual AVERSION to narcissism and exhibitionism, and a kind of “paranoia” that small things you do might seem like you are trying to catch attention. Which is true for me. The result on this site, is not.

  25. Jacqui

    That really was freaky. I chose number 2 and I’m an epileptic

  26. Shawn

    I thought the test was bs. I honestly didn’t find any of the faces scary or menacing. I read through all 8 explanations and the couple that applied the best were not at all faces that made me feel a certain way. Idk

  27. KB

    Is there any way to find out who the people are in images?

  28. Paul Smith

    These 1920/30’s photos do not relate to the modern era. Frankly I would not want to meet most of them in the dark and how could you make out their faces in the dark anway?! Stated to instill pre-fear. At what point does an inaccurate result negate a test and coincidence judged to be random?

  29. Lee

    Number 5, and I was actually surprised, I think it’s describes me well, but I dont think I’m a narcissist.
    Anyway, interesting test.

  30. Leopold

    Apparently there are enough psychological issues here among past posters to fill a psychiatrists office for a lifetime.

    1. Rain

      lmao

  31. J. Roxanne

    I was in fear of any of those individuals; though I could look at the pictures and see some Psych issues…Perhaps it was my Military background and Martial Art Training that makes me not afraid and if you come behind me in the dark or light, my skills will pick in, then it’s on a cracking…

    1. Kimberly

      I also didn’t feel any fear, unfortunately, I found myself to be judgemental if anything. I do not have a Military background and only decades old marginal martial arts training. Additionally, the picture I felt any repulsion to not fear did hit the nail as fair as some of my personality traits

  32. Dr. Sadiq

    Although these test are very great but its is for clinical approved patient, not good for self analysis, second as per psychology, every one is mentally sick, and this is not the actual reality,

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