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Projective techniques with children : assessment through guided imagery, drawing, and post-drawing inquiry

University of British Columbia

Through the use of guided imagery, drawing, and a post-drawing inquiry, this study sought to explore the effectiveness of projective techniques for personality assessment with elementary school children. An extensive literature review reported on the use of guided imagery and drawing as projective techniques and their applicability with children. The literature supported the concept that projective methods are valid techniques to use with children because of their non-threatening nature and because of their ability to tap into the children's inner world. The guided imagery, drawing activity, and post-drawing inquiry were administered to twenty children, ranging in age from nine to twelve. The children were chosen by the elementary school counsellor and by the regular classroom teachers based upon their work and social behaviours in the classroom. Ten children were grouped as "positive copers" and ten children were grouped as "negative copers". The data from the study was evaluated both from a quantitative and a qualitative perspective. The Fischer Exact Probability Test noted the predominance of the presence of thorns in the drawing done by the "negative copers". This test also recorded that the raters had a high degree of agreement in the "picture only" sort and the "picture and statement combined" sort, but that there was no significant agreement in the "statements only" sort. From the qualitative perspective, it was observed that in the drawings the "positive copers" used characteristics of smiling faces, suns shining, and flowers blooming, while the "negative copers" showed characteristics of tangled branches, large thorns, and barred doors. In the statements accompanying the drawings, the "positive copers" used such metaphors as "I'm a happy rosebush", while the "negative copers" used words depicting death, loss, violence, neglect, hurt, and abandonment. Some exceptions were also noted. Two of the "positive copers" consistently indicated through the drawings and statements that they were dealing with some unresolved psychological pain, while two of the "negative copers" demonstrated creativity and some definite psychological strength. In summary, the qualitative approach to analysing the data yielded more useful information than the quantitative approach and the findings indicate that the combination of the guided imagery, drawing, and post-drawing inquiry as a projective method can be a useful tool for elementary school counselling.

Text

2010-05-25

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/24993

Counselling Psychology

University of British Columbia

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