[1] Additional versions were developed by other later practitioners, although adaptations designed as projective tests have been heavily criticized in the clinical literature due to their lack of psychometric validity.
[5] It ranked in the top five most popular psychological tests used by mental health practitioners, particularly school psychologists, from the 1960s until the early 1990s when participation in the required training began to decline.
[6] Additional versions were developed by later practitioners, although adaptations designed as projective tests have been heavily criticized in the clinical literature due to their lack of psychometric validity.
Reasoning that providing a test subject with several sheets of blank paper, a pencil, and explaining that "you are going to be shown some cards, one at a time, with a simple design on each of them and you are to copy them as well as you can.
However, nothing regarding this preliminary work was published and it remained out of the mainstream of educational psychology, which at that time was virtually limited to intelligence, ability, and vocational interest testing.
However, with the United States entering World War II in 1941, Hutt was commissioned in the U.S. Army and assigned as a consultant in Psychology to the Surgeon General's Office in Washington.
The Army was experiencing a need to quickly train and deploy both Psychiatrists and Psychologists to meet the vastly increased need for professionals to diagnose and treat the emotional problems that develop in the stress of wartime military duty.
There he introduced the Bender-Gestalt Test to classes of inducted and commissioned psychologists who in prior years had experience in educational clinics, schools, and mental institutions.
In 1959, Hutt met with a former student and recent Army Officer and Psychologist, Dr. Gerald J. Briskin, who had served during the Korean War and who had made considerable use of the Bender-Gestalt during his military service.
It is important to note that when the test-taker has a mental age less than 9, brain damage, a nonverbal learning disability, or an emotional problem, an error can occur in the results of the test.