His first job in the USA was at
Columbia University where he conducted research with the famous anthropologist
Franz Boas.
He was founding editor of the Rorschach Research Exchange and Journal of Projective Techniques in 1936. This Journal became the "Journal of Projective Techniques" in 1950, The Journal of Projective Techniques & Personality Assessment in 1963, and eventually became the Journal of Personality Assessment in 1971.
He was the Director of the Rorschach Institute from 1939 to 1947, and was the President of the Society of Projective Techniques from 1947 until his death in 1971.
Klopfer performed workshops on the interpretation of the Rorschach test.
Mary Ainsworth, a major contributor to the development of
attachment theory, attended one of these workshops. The meeting led to Klopfer and Ainsworth collaborating to coauthor a book on the Rorschach technique [2]
Works
"Psychological Variables in Human Cancer", Journal of Projective Techniques, vol. 21, no. 4 (December 1957), pp. 331–340. (This paper is also significant because it contains an account of the impact of the treatment of a lymphosarcoma upon a patient of one of Klopfer's colleagues (Philip West) with a bogus medicine, Krebiozen. Klopfer's account of Wright's progress is often referred to in the cancer literature, but the actual reference is seldom cited.)
The Rorschach Technique: A Manual for a Projective Method of Personality Diagnosis, World Book Co, (Yonkers-on-Hudson), 1946.
With Ainsworth, M.D., Klopfer, W.G. & Holt, R.R., Developments in the Rorschach Technique: Vol.1, Technique and Theory, World Book Co, (Yonkers-on-Hudson), 1954.
With Ainsworth, M.D., Klopfer, W.G. & Holt, R.R.(eds.), Developments in the Rorschach Technique: Vol.2, Fields of Application, World Book Co, (Yonkers-on-Hudson), 1956.
With & Davidson, H.H., The Rorschach Technique; an Introductory Manual, Harcourt, Brace & World, (New York), 1962.
With Meyer, M., Brawer, F. & Klopfer, W.G. (eds.), Developments in the Rorschach Technique: Vol.3, Aspects of Personality Structure, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, (New York), 1970.
Notes
^His dissertation was entitled The Psychology of Inhibition.