Sach Sentence Completion Test (SSCT)

Background
• Was developed by Joseph M. Sach and other psychologists of New York Veterans
Administration Mental Hygiene Service
• It was designed to obtain significantly clinical material in four representative areas
of adjustment: family, sex, interpersonal relationship, and self-concept.
• It provide respondents with beginnings of sentences, (stems), and respondents are
to complete the sentences in ways that are meaningful to them.
Four Areas
• Family (Attitudes)
• Toward the mother
• Toward the father
• Family unit
• Sex (Attitudes)
• Toward women as social individuals
• Toward marriage
• Toward sexual relationship
• Interpersonal Relationship (Attitudes)
• Toward friend or acquaintances
• Toward colleagues at work or school
• Toward people supervised
• Self-concept
• Involves fear, guilt feelings, and goals
• Attitudes towards one’s own abilities
• Attitudes towards past and future
Test Administration
• It can be administered individually or to groups and subjects
• Duration: 20-40 minutes
• Instruction: “Below are 60 partly completed sentences. Read each one and finish it
by writing the first thing that comes to your mind. Work as quickly as you can. If
you cannot complete an item, encircle the number and return to it later.”
Interpretation and Scoring
• A rating is made of the subject’s degree of disturbance in this area according to the
following scale:
• 2 – Severely disturbed. Appears to require therapeutic aid in handling
emotional conflicts in this area
 • 1 – Mildly disturbed. Has emotional conflicts in this area, but appears that
he’s able to handle them without therapeutic aid.
• 0 – No significant disturbance noted in this area
• X – Unknown, insufficient evidence
Guide:
• I. Attitude towards father (1,16,31,46)
• 2 – feels extreme hostility and contempt with overt death wishes
• 1 – admires father but wishes their relationship were closer
• 0 – complete expression of satisfaction with father’s personality
• II. Attitude towards own abilities (2,17,32,47)
• 2 – feels completely incompetent and hopeless
• 1 – feels he has specific ability and persistence
• 0 – confident of his ability to overcome obstacles
• III. Goals (3,18, 33, 47)
• 2 – direct expression of hostility, aggression of society, extravagant and
realistic
• 1 – desires material things for family as well as for self
• 0 – sees importance in happiness and health
• IV. Attitude toward people supervised (4,19, 34, 49)
• 2 – feels he would not be able to control his hostility in supervising others
• 1 – feels capable of doing good supervisory but has misgiving about assuming
an authoritarian role
• 0 – feels comfortable and well-accepted by subordinate
• V. Attitude towards future 5, 20, 35, 50)
• 2 – pessimistic, no hope in his own resources for happiness and success
• 1 – unsure of himself but generally optimistic
• 0 – seems confident in achieving his materialistic goals
• VI. Attitude towards supervisors at work/school (6,21, 36, 52)
• 2 = resents authority
• 1 – mild difficulty in accepting authority
• 0 – expresses lack of overt fear or insufficient evidence
• VII. Fears (7, 22, 37, 52)
• 2 – disturbed by apparent fear of losing identity or consciousness and
possibility to control his impulse
• 1 – fear of self-assertion, which is commonly fair and not pervasive
 • 0 – expresses lack of overt fear or insufficient evidence
• VIII. Attitude towards friends and acquaintances (8, 23, 38, 53)
• 2 – suspicious and apparently seclusive
• 1 – seems to wait for approval of others before committing himself
emotionally
• 0 – expresses good mutual feelings between friends and self
• IX. Attitude towards past (9, 24, 39, 54)
• 2 – keenly felt lack of mother, rejected and emotionally isolated
• 1 – in the average
• 0 – feels well-adjusted, positive feeling, tone, and memory of accomplishment

• X. Attitude towards men/women (10, 25, 40, 55)

• 2 – extremely suspicious, possible homosexual tendency
• 1 – high ideals but with ambivalent feelings
• 0 – only minor criticisms and superficial
• XI. Attitude towards heterosexual relationship (11, 26, 41, 56)
• 2 – appears to have given up achieving good sexual adjustment
• 1 – desires sexual experience but show reservation
• 0 –indicates satisfaction towards this area
• XII. Attitude towards family unit (12, 27, 42, 57)
• 2 – feels rejected by family, which lacks solidarity and which has constantly
met with difficulties
• 1 – aware that family does not recognize him as a mature person but feels no
difficulty in identifying them
• 0 – instability of family domicile has had little effect on his feeling towards
them
• XIII. Attitude towards colleague at work/school (13, 28, 43, 58)
• 2 – feels rejected by colleagues and condemns them
• 1 – has some difficulty with his work and is dependent of his colleagues
• 0 – expresses good mutual feelings
• XIV. Attitude towards mother (14, 28, 44, 50)
• 2 – completely rejects and depreciates mother whom he considers over-
demanding
• 1 – sees mother’s faults but accepts and tolerates their difficulties
• 0 – expresses only positive feeling towards mother
• XIV. Guilt feelings (15, 30, 45, 60)
 • 2 – concerned with spiritual and physical feelings
• 1 – has regret over past and seems mildly disturbed by his failure to control
trouble
• 0 – does not seem to be aware of guilt feelings
Validity and Reliability
• Can be interpreted in two ways:
• Subjective-intuitive analysis of the underlying motivations projected in the
subject’s responses
• Objective analysis by means of scores assigned to each completed sentence