DRAW A PERSON TEST

A. INTERPRETATION OF STRUCTURE AND CONTENT

SIZE
The size of the drawing tells about the patient’s self-esteem and the manner in which the patient deals
with self-esteem. Any extreme indicates psychopathology

Tiny Figure: shrunken ego; feels inadequate; directly indicating inadequacy feelings and perhaps
responding them by withdrawal

Fill the Entire Page: may react with self-expansiveness and self-aggrandizement in order to cover up
similar inadequacy feelings

Unusually Large Drawings: can be a sign of aggressive and acting-out tendencies;

• expansive, euphoric, or grandiose tendencies;
• hyperactive, emotional, manic conditions; or anxiety/conflict

Unusually Small Drawings: indicate feelings of inferiority;

• inadequacy and low self-esteem; anxiety;
• withdrawal tendencies in inhibited, restrained, timid, shy, or constricted adults and children;
• depressive tendencies;
• regressive, dependent tendencies;
• constriction under stress

Overruns Page: lacks planning ability; tends to be manic, overactive

PENCIL PRESSURE
Pencil Pressure has been described as an indication of patient’s energy level.

Heavy Pressure: indicate high energy level; indicate extreme tension or anxiety;
• an approach to life which is assertive and forceful (ambition); aggressive tendencies;
• anxiety and constrictive behavior, particularly under stress; and
• possible paranoid conditions

Light Pressure: indicate low energy level; restraint; repression

Unusually Light Pressure:

• indicate a hesitant, indecisive, timid, fearful, inhibited, and insecure personality pattern;
• a neurotic condition, most often with anxiety symptoms;
• depressive conditions, or
• an expansive adaptation under external stress situations

Pressure variations: adaptability; flexibility

Varied pressure: emotionally unstable; moody

Pressured lines: aggressive; assertive

Uneven pressured lines: anxiety; insecurity

Tiny Figure, light pressure: constriction; feeling of insignificance and lack of worth

Figure micrographic with detail shading, erasures, pressure variations: deep repression; neurotic
depression
STROKE AND LINE QUALITY

Long Pencil Stroke: indicate controlled behavior, perhaps even inhibition in the extreme

Short Strokes: indicate impulsive behavior and excitation

Horizontal Movement Emphasis: may suggest fearfulness or self-protective tendencies

Vertical Movement: suggest assertiveness and determination

Curved Line Emphasis: suggest flexibility

Straight Line Emphasis: may indicate assertiveness or rigidity

Line Quality that is Discontinues (e.g. many breaks in the outside boundary of the figures): indicate
anxiety and/or conflict, but in the extreme it suggest that the anxiety has overwhelmed the patient

Drawings in which the Outline of the Figure seems to be so Discontinues that it appears as a Series of
Disconnected Dashes: often found in severely disturbed (psychotic) patients who have problems with
reality contact and who are overwhelmed by confused bizarre thoughts

Straight, Uninterrupted Strokes: associated with personality style that emphasizes a quick, decisive
and assertive approach to life

DETAILS

Lack of Details
• indicates withdrawal tendencies with an associated reduction of energy
• a typical reaction to stress experienced as external to the patient
• or a depression that is often associated with withdrawal tendencies and lack of energy to
complete the figure

Excessive Detailing: often seen in obsessive-compulsive patients

• some patients, under external stress conditions, deal with the stress by becoming increasingly
obsessive

PLACEMENT
Machover believes that a person draws, he draws somebody whom he knows very much, and
such person is himself. The paper in which this person draws is symbolic of his environment.

Middle of the page: typical of most normal subjects

Right Side of the Page: indicate stability and controlled behavior;

• willingness to delay satisfaction of needs and drives
• preference of intellectual satisfactions compared to emotional ones, tendency to intellectualize
• introversive tendencies
• orientation to the future
• negativism and rebellious tendencies

Left Side of the Page: indicate impulsive acting-out behavior

• a tendency toward immediate, frank, and emotional satisfaction of motives
• extroversion
• preoccupation with one’s changing needs
• a self-centered approach to life; orientation and concern with the past
• possible feelings of uncertainty and apprehension

High on the Page: indicate high drive level

• high level of aspiration
 • striving for achievement, or striving to achieve difficult goals
• indicate unjustified optimism, or an aloof orientation in a patient who is psychologically or
socially inaccessible

The higher the drawing is on the page, the greater is the possibility that the patient feels he or she is
striving with great determination; that the goal is relatively unattainable; that the patient is aloof and
relatively inaccessible.

Low on the Page: indication of insecurity and inadequacy, with resultant depression;
• an indication that the patient feels reality bound and tends to be concrete, rather than
theoretical or abstract
• an indication of a defeatist attitude

Upper Left-hand Corner: indicate regressive tendencies

• feelings of insecurity and hesitancy
• withdrawal
• anxiety (except for children in the early elementary grades)

Upper Right-hand Corner: a desire to suppress an unpleasant past or excessive optimism about the
future

Bottom Edge of the Paper:

• suggest the need for support associated with feelings of insecurity and low self-assurance
• dependency; fear of independent action
• anxiety
• tendency to avoid new experiences or to remain absorbed in fantasy; or depressive condition

ERASURES
Erasures are apt to happen in the hands and feet, the shoulders, the arms, the nose, the ears,
the crotch, and the hipline. Interpretation depends on the part of the body in which erasures is found.
This form of conflict treatment is usually found among neurotics, obsessive-compulsive characters, and
psychopaths with neurotic conflicts. Erasures are considered as an expression of anxiety but differ
from the line reinforcement and shading in that they show overt dissatisfaction. Machover states that
pubertial girls erase profusely.

Excessive Erasure: indicate uncertainty

• conflict-filled indecisiveness and restlessness
• dissatisfaction with self
• anxiety/conflict (especially true if the erasure and subsequent reworking does not improve the
drawing)
• if the redrawing improves the figure, it is probable that the conflict is being adequately
contained and dealt with, and that it is not causing any problem in everyday functions.

SHADING
Shading is an indicator of anxiety, and the particular area shaded suggests the source of
anxiety. Vigorous, aggressive scribbling to cover up something is considered to be a discharge of
aggression and expression of concealment. The most frequent kind of shading is done by using light,
dim, and uncertain lines which accents particular parts of the figure. The most frequently shaded parts
of the figure are the chest of the male figure, which indicates sensitivity to physical inferiority, and
the breast of the female figure done by the male subject which suggests conflict concerning mother
dependence. Female subject may put few subtle lines in the skirt in the area of the genitals,
suggesting “furtive and inhibited sexual concern”.

Excessive Shading: indicates anxiety/conflict or agitated depression

If the Shading is carefully done, and seems to enhance the drawing: probable that the area that is
drawn is conflict related, but the conflict is being dealt with appropriately
If the Shading is messy, uneven, or hurriedly done: the conflict is causing anxiety and is disturbing the
person in everyday adjustment

Vigorous shading, aggressive scribbling to cover up something

• expression of both discharge of aggression and of concealment

Shading of sexual area of the Female figure by Male subject:

• sexually sadistic male

Light, dim and uncertain line which furtively accent particular part of the body:
Chest in the Male figure – sensitive to physical inferiority
Breast in the female figure by Male subject – conflict involving mother dependence

DISTORTIONS AND OMMISSIONS

An indication of severe psychopathology and/or lack of sense of self.

Gross Distortion: indicates poor reality contact or negative self-concept

Moderate Distortions and Omissions: indicate conflict/anxiety

TRANSPARENCY
• indicate poor reality ties, except, in the drawings of young children
• suggests poor reality testing; anxiety/conflict; sexual disturbance; or regressive, psychotic
conditions

VERTICAL IMBALANCE
• the greater the imbalance from the vertical position, the greater the anxiety

DIFFERENTIAL TREATMENT OF THE MALE AND FEMALE FIGURES

Machover hypothesizes that the individual who is identified with his own sex will draw the self
figure first. She states that “some degree of sexual inversion was contained in records of all individuals
who draw the opposite sex first.” She also feels that the subjects who scrabble the sexual
characteristics of the two figures they draw are suffering from sexual maladjustment. A pair of figures
in which one is drawn disproportionately larger than the other suggests that the larger figure is viewed
as the stronger, while the smaller figure would suggest that the figure drawn smaller is the weaker sex.

Figure almost the same: does not recognize the role of sex

Female figure drawn bigger than the male figure: recognizes female as stronger sex, powerful than
the male

Male figure drawn bigger than the female: normal; recognize the male as the more powerful sex

SEX OF FIRST-DRAWN FIGURE

Same-sex Drawing: normal

Draw the Opposite-Sex first: frequently indicate homosexuals;

• confused sexual identification
• strong attachment or dependence on person of the opposite sex
• ambivalence or conflict regarding one’s sexual identification
• poor self-concept
• greater interest and/or awareness of the opposite sex compared with the same sex

EFFEMINATE SIGNS IN THE MALE FIGURE

Long eyelashes, soft mouth with large lips, arched eyebrows:

• indicates femininity or identification with the female role in society
 • these signs appear in drawings of overt homosexuals, homoerotic paranoids; obsessive-
compulsive
• at times, in some normal who tend to be sensitive, idealistic, well-educated or aesthetic in
interests

B. INTERPRETATION CONCERNING BODY PARTS

HEAD
It is the important location of the self; essentially, the center for intellectual power; social
dominance; and control body impulse. The head is a symbol of intellectual and fantasy activity, of
impulse, and of emotional control. The head is also the site of socialization and communication.

Unusually Large head: indicate aggressive and expansive tendencies

• inflated ego, over evaluation of the intellectual, high achievement
• fantasy as a primary source of satisfaction
• regression, inhibition and dependency
• possible anxiety
• strong intellectual striving; considerable fantasy activity as source of satisfaction
• feelings of intellectual inadequacy with compensatory stress on intellectual achievement
• possible grandiosity and egocentric attitudes based on feelings of inadequacy
• paranoia; narcissism; intellectually righteous; vain person; enlarged ego

Unusually Small Head: indicate feelings of inadequacy

• sexual impotence
• a feeling of intellectual inadequacy
• weak ego condition
• wish to deny the intellectual control which prevents the satisfaction of body impulses
• obsessive compulsive; expression of the desire to deny the site of painful thoughts and guilt
feelings

Head is drawn by an adult of average or better intelligence in a child-like fashion (e.g. circle rather
than oval, with dots or circles of eyes, ears stuck on like jug handles, and mouth as a single line.): the
patient is grossly immature, that the patient is regressed, or that he or she is experiencing a good deal
of anxiety/conflict

Sex given the proportionately larger head: sex accorded more intellect and social authority

Head drawn last: disturbed interpersonal relationship

Lollipop head: immaturity

Head only or back heads: experiences emotional blunting

Head emphasis: depressed and emotionally withdrawn

Head emphasis, without eyes, nose and mouth: socially withdrawn

Flat head: fear of castration or rejecting

Mask-like face: depersonalization

Fragmented, looks like a robot: lack of Control of impulses; denial about guilt

Head clearly indicated, dim line or no body: compensatory fantasy, feeling of anxiety or of inferiority

Ape drawing: like physical power

FACIAL FEATURES

Omitted: psychosis, evasiveness, superficiality in interpersonal relationships, inadequate

environmental interest, or possible withdrawal tendencies

Features dim with emphasis on head contour: timidity; withdrawal

Overemphasis of Facial Features:

• indicate over concern with outward appearances
• feelings of inadequacy and weakness that are compensated for by aggressive and socially
dominant behavior

Overemphasize the Face and Hair, typically with Large Eyes and Prominent Lashes and Emphasis on
Lips and Hair: patients with hysteroid and/or narcissistic traits

EYES
Considered to be the “windows of the soul” and to reveal the inner feelings; organs or making
external contacts; provides sensory data to permit the age to deal with the world and is a cybernetic
device for facilitating feedbacks

Unusually Large or Strongly Reinforced Eyes:

• indicate suspiciousness and other paranoid characteristics
• hypersensitivity to social opinion
• socially outgoing tendencies

Eyes with Pupils Omitted (Empty Eyes)/Closed Eyes:

• an introversive, self-absorbed tendency in withdrawing persons who are not interested in
perceiving their environment; or who perceive it and themselves only vaguely, a condition seen
in neuroses and schizoid personalities which may be due to an inability to cope or a
communications difficulty

Disproportionately small: desire to shut out world; self-absorption

Unseeing: emotional immaturity; egocentricity

Looking away from the viewer: possible sign of withdrawal; rejection of environmental problems

Small circles for the eyes, nose and mouth: dependency; shallow emotionality; lack of discrimination;
evasive from criticism and responsibility

Blind, closed, concealed by hat, or hallow socket:

• marked reluctance to view world
• possible hostility towards others
• tendency to avoid unpleasant situations; to exclude unpleasantness

Emphasis on pupils and eyelashes: paranoia

Elaborate eyes and perhaps draw eyelashes, and will draw well-specified pupil by Male subject:
Effeminate male such as homosexuals

Large, accentuated: hostile and penetrating

• glamourized individual indicative of exhibitionistic trends, especially in girls
• homosexuals; egotistical hysteric

Furtive or suspicious eyes: convey ideas of reference

Piercing: paranoids; over alertness to world; suspiciousness of motives and behavior of others; limited
breadth of vision but penetrating wariness in paranoid personality

One eye big, another small: weakening of personality strength

Dot eye: withdrawal tendency

Hollow eye: reluctance to interact

With eyeglasses: evasion from reality; paranoia

Popeyed: sexually excited

Cockeyed: confused thinking

Large orbit with small eye: strong visual curiosity with guilt; possible voyeuristic conflicts

Omission of one eye of the male figure (female subject): admittedly associated with sadistic fantasies

EYEBROW

Trim: social stereotype reflecting refinement and grooming women with glamour aspirations and body
narcissism often critical of freely expressing feelings

Raised: contemptuous, haughty attitude

Bushy: primitive, gruff, possibly inhibited

NOSE
The nose said to be phallic symbol or a symbol of a power motive

Large Nose or one that is otherwise emphasized: indicate sexual difficulties, including psychosexual
immaturity and/or castration fears, sexual impotency, or aggressive tendencies
• felt inadequate male role with striving for it (adolescent)

Omitted: a shy, withdraw, or depressive personality style, or feelings of castration

Noses drawn by adults as a Button or a Triangle

• suggest immaturity
• a regressive response to conflict
• anxiety in older children, adolescents or adults

Sharply Pointed Nose: suggests acting-out tendencies

Broad, flared, hooked: contemptuous attitude tendency to think in derisive social stereotypes

Shaded, Dim, or Truncated Nose: indicate castration fear; infantile male who projects defects to a
female

Reinforced nose: direct compensation for inadequate sexuality

Long and thin: psychosexually infantile; suffers from body weakness in which expresses in a
compensatory drive for physical power and aggression

Flattened: power striving which have been punished

Defects in nose: masturbation guilt

Nostrils emphasized: a specific accent of aggression; primitive aggression

Upturned: schizoid; withdrawn

MOUTH
Problems in drawing the mouth the sometimes associated with feeding-eating difficulties,
speech disturbances, outbursts of anger, or a dependent approach to life

Mouth Emphasis: indicate a possible regressive orientation

• oral emphasis in the personality
• possible verbal aggressiveness associated with a dependent, immature personality
• possible sexual difficulties
• verbal sadism
• depressive or primitive tendencies

Mouth omitted on female subject: possible scolding maternal figure

Omitted: possible conflict concerning oral aggressive tendencies; guilt on oral aggression
• depressive conditions
• difficulty or reluctance to communicate
• rejection of the need for affection
• in children, possible obsessions and anxiety
• a shy withdrawn, depressed interpersonal style

Slash Line Mouth: suggest verbal aggression, anger, hypercriticality, possible sadistic tendencies

Single Line, Unsmiling Mouth: suggest depression

Concave and orally receptive mouth: infantile, dependent individuals

Tiny Mouth: suggests denial of oral dependent needs

Mouth with a Large Grin: suggests either forced congeniality or inappropriate affect; an effort to win
approval; tendency to present smiling, acceptable façade to mask less acceptable feelings

Sneering: contempt for others; aggression, hostility probably because of feelings of weakness and
insecurity

Adult Drawing with Teeth Showing: suggest infantile, aggressive, or sadistic tendencies

Tongue Showing: strong oral concentration in the primitive level; adds an erotic note

Mouth shut tightly: single mark of tension; also often seen in individuals who have had active sexual
experience

Mouth open: orality

Mouth markedly full open or oval: dependent; oral-erotic

Mouth clown-like: force amiability; inappropriate affect

LIPS

Full lips in a male figure: indicate effeminacy and appear with other features reflecting foppish and
narcissistic interests.

Cupid Bow mouth in Female Figure: exhibitionistically inclined, sexually precocious adolescent females
Objects drawn in the mouth (e.g. cigarettes): indicate oral erotic trends; acute sexual preoccupation

EARS

Large Ears: indicate hypersensitivity; suspicious; distrust

Emphasized: sensitivity to the outside world; paranoia; sensitive to criticism; feels persecuted

Lack of emphasis: refusal to listen to criticism; denial of concern over opinions of others

Not balance: personality disintegration; pathological psychosis

Omitted: often in drawings by normal subjects

Ears put elsewhere: Schizophrenics

HAIR

Overemphasis on hair on the head (and hair emphasis on the chest or face):
• indicate virility strivings
• sexual preoccupation
• compensation for feelings of sexual inadequacy or impotence
• possible angry, aggressive, assault tendencies
• narcissism
• possible anxiety or conflict

Balding male figure: felt lack of virility

Hair is absent: feelings of sexual inadequacy:

• castration fears
• a possible schizophrenic condition
• a low physical vigor

Hair emphasis: infantile or regressed sex drives; sensuality or sensual needs; assaultiveness

Heavily shaded: excessive sexuality; severe anxiety about sexuality or mental control; anxiety over
thinking or fantasy

Long and unshaded: ambivalence or hostility over sexuality

Messy hair: suggest sexual immorality

Disheveled or messed up female hair: in adolescents, indicates impulsivity, often of sexual nature

Vigorous shading of hair with poor form delineation: expressions of virility conflicts brimming over
into some sexual deviant behavior

Messy female hair and precise male hair-do: seen in psychosexually infantile males and indicates
sexual disorderliness in connection with female and control with male

Hair on females, not on males: regression

Elaborate hair-do: sociopathic females who enjoys self-display; vanity; homosexual male who enjoys
self display
• Adolescent girls with glamour aspirations

Prim, orderly: in female figure indicates sexual control; possible barreness

Sparse unpressed hair: inadequate virility

Hair unshaded: depression; drop in libido

Hair excitement: relates to arousal of infantile sexual drives

Much attention to hair: narcissism; self-centered; vain; homosexual tendency

Hair parted on the middle: feminine identification dealt with binarcissism and obsessive-compulsive
mechanism

Covered by hair with degree of shading: indicates extent and adequacy of virility; virility striving

Drawing of a hairy woman: suggests the woman is viewed as being sexually passionate

Emphasis on wavy, glamorous, cascading hair (usually seen in adolescent girls): sexually delinquent;
or entertain aspirations of an amorous act.

Hair on jaws: schizoids

FACE

Strong emphasis: concern about social relationships and outward appearance

• compensating for inadequacy, weakness or lack of assertion by drawing an aggressive and
socially dominant figure
• inner drive for social assertion

Dim or omitted: evasive about conflicts involving interpersonal relationships

• withdrawn from social relationships
• self conscious; shy

Shape: if oval – feminine, sensitive aesthetic; if square – powerful, masculine, power striving

Drawn last: difficulty in social relationships; desires to avoid self-revelation

Creased forehead: intellectual aspirations; or stress on emotional control; chronic worrier

Extra lines at naso-labial fold: provides depth and maturity to face concern over emotional maturity or
appearing mature

CHIN

Overemphasized Chin:
• possible compensation for feelings of weakness
• possible feelings of social inadequacy
• suggests aggressive/dominance tendencies
• possible strong drive levels

Chin emphasized on opposite sex: dependency on opposite sex; opposite sex regarded as stronger

Weak Chin: indicate feelings of either psychological or physiological impotence

Full view, a break in line or heavy reinforcement of the Female figure by the Male Subject: projection
of greater power onto the female; dependent male

Profile, erased, reinforced, show a change of line or made to jut out prominently:
• compensation for weakness; indecision; fear of responsibility; strong drive to be socially
forceful and dominant
Light lines: fear of responsibility; strong drive to be socially forceful and dominant though not
externalized in behavior but nurtured in fantasy

BEARD/MUSTACHE
Symbolizes the need to enhance personal or sexual status, virility strivings, efforts to enhance
masculinity, attempts to hide, aggressive tendencies, or compensation for felt adult inadequacy

Goatee: virility symbol indicating need to demonstrate masculinity in an unusual way

• indicate artistic, antisocial or schizoid elements
• if heavily shaded, over concern with virility may occur in adolescents, homosexuals, old men
and some dull paranoids

Beard: a phallic substitute: need to demonstrate virility; status and power symbol

Heavily shaded beard: virility strivings and doubts about masculinity

NECK
The neck is typically regarded as the link between intellectual life (symbolized by the head) and
the affect (basic body impulses) symbolized by the body. The neck represents the link between ego
control (head and id impulse (body). Ogdon states, “Labile affect, fear of labile affect, concern
regarding acting-out tendencies, and the need to separate one’s cognitive activity from one’s affect life
may be represented in the treatment of the neck”

Neck Emphasis: indicates concern regarding the need to control threatening impulses

Unusually Short, Thick Neck:

• indicate tendencies to be gruff, stubborn, and rigid; impulsivity
• a desire to keep impulses from hindering intellect

Unusually Long Neck:

• indicate an attempt to separate intellectual ideas from emotions; mastery over impulses
• a cultured, socially stiff, or even formally rigid and overly moral approach to life

Exceptionally Long, Thin Neck: indicate schizoid or psychotic problems

Omitted: impulsivity is suggested (if the patient is over 10 years of age)

With short slashed: suicidal tendencies

Adam’s Apple: Expression of a strong drive for virility or masculinity in the drawings of young males.

SHOULDERS

Well-drawn and Neatly Rounded Shoulder: normal, indicating adequate, well-balanced control of
impulses and behavior

Large or Broad Shoulder:

• indicates a need for physical power, possible aggressive, acting-out tendencies
• excessive defensiveness
• in females, possible sex-role confusion or masculine protest
• feelings of extreme concern for power and strength

Absence of Shoulders: suggests the presence of a thought disorder

Pointed Shoulder: indicate acting-out tendencies

Small/Tiny Shoulder: suggest inferiority feelings; de-emphasis of physical power with compensatory or
substitute interests

In nude drawings, massive shoulders emphasized at the expense of other parts: sexually ambivalent
as an overt compensation for feelings of body inadequacy

Erasure and reinforcement: preoccupation with physical strivings and a drive for body development as
an expression of power
• drive for boy development as expression of masculinity is a basic preoccupation

Massive shoulders on the female figure (female subject): suspected of having some degree of
masculine protest

ARMS
The arms reflect the type and quality of the patient’s contact with the environment and
interpersonal relations; a psychological meaning referring primarily to ego-development and social
adaptation.

Arms Drawn as Relaxed and Flexible: considered normal

Arms Drawn Akimbo: indicate narcissistic or bossy tendencies

Arms behind the Back:

• Suggest reluctance to meet people halfway; need to control aggressive
• Hostile feelings or behavior; or guilt feelings
• Need to control expression of aggression

Reaching into environment: reaching for attention and social; dependency; desire for affection

Outstretched arms: needs emotional support when under stress

Arms pressed to the side: difficulty in social contact; fear of aggressive impulses

Folded Arms: indicate suspicious, hostile attitudes, non-assertive orientation

• Unwillingness to interact socially

Winglike: weak, schizoid contact

Frail, Thin, Small, or Shrunken Arms: suggest feelings of inadequacy or a general feeling of
ineffectiveness

Heavily Shaded: sometimes indicates sense of punishment

Arms reinforced: assaultiveness

Long Arms: ambitious and striving for success; ambition for accomplishment or acquisition
• Demand for love and attention

Overly Long: ambitious in compensation for feelings of inadequacy

Long, Strong Arms: indicate acquisitive and compensatory ambition

• Need for achievement or physical strength
• Active, aggressive contact with the environment
• Need for autonomy (Children subject)

Short Arms: indicate a lack of ambition; passivity; feelings of inadequacy

• Possible castration fears
• Feeling weak and giving in to life
Bicep Emphasis: physical strivings may occur in male figures drawn by “masculine protest”; female
homosexuals
• Aggressive; energetic (Male subject)

Broader at hand that at shoulder: indicates lack of self-control and/or tendencies to be impulsive

Omission of Arms: indicate guilt feelings concerning hostility or sexuality

• Withdrawal and/or Depression
• Dissatisfaction with the environment
• Strong withdrawal tendencies, or passivity
• Feelings of inadequacy and ineffectiveness

Arms of Female Omitted (male subject): suggests rejection by his mother and unaccepted by females

Conflict treatment: ambivalent feelings concerning retreating from or dealing with the environment

HANDS

Outstretched Hands: suggest a desire for environmental or interpersonal contact or a desire for help
or affection

Hands Placed behind the Back: indicate an evasive interpersonal approach; unwillingness to deal with
the situation; lack of confidence
• Guilt feelings concerning other people
• Guilt feelings concerning masturbation
• Merely a feeling of insecurity concerning the ability to draw hands adequately

Near genitals: sexual preoccupation; guilt over masturbation; defense against sexual approach

In pockets: masturbation; maybe psychopath

Large Hands: suggest compensation for inadequacy feelings; reaction to some guilt use of the hands

Small Hands: indicate feelings of insecurity and helplessness

Hands drawn as Mittens: indicate repressed or suppressed aggressive tendencies, with the aggression
expressed indirectly

Clenched fist towards the body: inner and repressed rebellion that finds expression in symptoms
rather than in behavior

Clenched fist with arms away from the body: aggressive behavior which is close to being acted out;
rebelliousness is fairly close to surface in behavior; adolescent delinquents

Vigorously shaded: guilt in regard to aggressive impulse or masturbation activity

Heavily shaded: guilt over a real or fantasied action; masturbation; assault; theft

Hands emphasis: externalized aggression

Drawn last: reluctance to deal with environment because of feelings of inadequacy or denial of power
strivings

Disturbance of hand treatment: possibly lacks confidence in achievement and social contacts

Hands exaggeration: externalized aggression compensation for difficulty with interpersonal relations;
masturbation guilt
Dim or Omitted: suggests lack of confidence in social contacts or in productivity or both

FINGERS

Large fingers: assaultiveness

Fingers and joints are carefully indicated: indicated suggest obsessive control of aggression

Finger nails and finger joints carefully depicited: Compulsive body image problem as early
schizophrenic

Fingers clenched/ cut-off by lines: suggest repressed aggression and rebelliousness

• Conscious attempts to control anger
• Strenuous efforts to suppress aggressive impulses

Fingers without Hands, or Large Fingers in Adult Drawings: indicate regression

• Infantile aggressive/assaultive tendencies

Long Fingers: found in regressive patients; overt aggression

Omission/Overextended of fingers: indicate a feelings of difficulty in interpersonal relationships or

masturbatory guilt

Finger like claws: overt aggression; paranoid

Talon-like Fingers or Spiked Fingers:

• Indicate infantile, primitive, aggressive, and hostile acting-out tendencies
• Sometimes associated with paranoid features

Fingers fewer than five: dependency, helplessness

More than five fingers: aggressive with acquisitive disposition; very ambitious, acquisitive

Mittened fingers: repression of aggression and possibly furtive outbursts of aggression

Petal or grape like: poor manual skill; infantile emotionality

Scissors like fingers: castrating or views maternal or paternal figures as castrating

Rigid Thumb: castration; concerned with masturbation; possible homosexuality

Fingers shaded: guilt (as theft or masturbation)

BREASTS

Unusually Large Breasts drawn by Male Patients:

• indicate emotional immaturity
• maternal overdependence
• unresolved Oedipal problem
• psychosexual immaturity
• strong oral and dependency needs

Unusually Large Breasts drawn by Female Patients: indicate identification with a dominant mother,
exhibitionism, or narcissistic problems.

Heavy shading or disproportionate enlargement: dependency; immature; self-seeking individual

Large busted, maternal female: drawn by psychologically immature males and females reared in
homes where they were dominated and overprotected by mothers or mother surrogates

Small: indicates stinginess in offering love, affection, approval to children

• if drawn by females, may indicate rejection of female sexuality; may indicate feeling of rejection
by mother; may indicate fear of mature female sexuality

High and firm: youthful female figure with youthful sex desires
• may indicate young woman’s rejection of more mature female sexuality for “boyish”, “free
love” equality with men.

TRUNK

Body is drawn in Fragmented Fashion: an indication of serious personality disorganization

Simple Oval or Rectangle: it is typically drawn in children;

• If drawn by adult of average or better intelligence, this could indicate a regressed state, and
extremely immature personality, or the presence of sever anxiety/conflict

Large Trunk: symbolize unsatisfied drives

Long, Narrow Trunk: indicate possible schizoid tendencies

Rounded Trunk: suggest a passive, feminine, or perhaps an infantile, regressive personality

Omitted by an Adult: patient is severely disturbed or has severe conflicts that center on body impulses

Small Trunk: suggests a denial of drives, feelings of inferiority or both

Shading of the trunk of the Female figure anxiously by Male subject: rejection of own body and
aggression against the female

Trunk of opposite sex heavily shaded: hostility towards opposite sex

Slender figure: fears becoming stout; had associations of body fullness with authority and main
problem revolved about resistance to grow to adulthood

Accentuated bosom: usually in the context of a strong and dominant mother figure.

Body emphasis: egocentric; schizoid

BELLY
• or gut is the center for taking in nourishment

Distended: indicate feelings of physical weakness and somatic concern of involutional or depressed
males

Empty or not stomach: bizarre indicator may show schizophrenic emptiness

WAISTLINE
Ogdon notes the following concerning the waistline: In males the “above part” is the chest area
which embraces the primary body features of physical strength, the “below part” refers to the area of
sexual functioning. In females the “above part” refers primarily to the breast and nutritional factors,
whereas the “lower part” indicates the sexual and reproductive functions. Conflicts in the waistline
may be expressed by the delay in drawing, by reinforced waistline, by a broken line, or by an elaborate
belt drawn at the waistline.

Emphasized: sexual control; sexual concern

Heavily shaded or cut-off: extreme control of sexuality perhaps because of guilt feelings of sense of
impending loss of sexual control
• Combined with neck conflict, rigid stance, lack of movement, cutting of or hiding of hands
and rigidity of hands: indicate excessive rigidity and brittleness of control with failure to deal
with demands of the world

A Heavy Line Separating the Lower Body from the Rest of the Body: suggest acute sexual conflict

Unusually High or Low Waistline: suggest blocking and conflict regarding sexual tendencies

Excessively Tight Waistline (corseted appearance):

• Indicate precarious emotional control of body impulses, perhaps expresses by temperamental
outbursts
• Narcissistic; self-centered; vain

Elaborate Belt: indicates sexual preoccupation; sexual control; control of body impulses via
rationalization or sublimation, or phobic or neurotic behavior
• Buckle: dependency

Refusal to draw below waistline: sexually disturbed and blocked

Delay in drawing: block in dealing with the body area of sexuality

HIPS and BUTTOCKS

Emphasized by shading, size or erasure: indicates fixation at anal stage with resultant psychosexual
immaturity

Emphasis on the hips and buttocks: characteristic of homosexual conflicted males.

Exaggerated hips (female figures drawn by female subject): indicate that the woman is aware of the
power that relates to the functional potentialities of ample pelvic development.

Waist bound tightly: unstable emotional control

GENITALIA
• It is rarely drawn, but when they are, they indicate severe psychopathology, overt aggression
(in children), or sexual preoccupation and curiosity (adolescents)
• In is important to note that normal art students, persons in psychoanalysis, and patients in sex
therapy often produce nude drawings that may include genitals

LEGS
Legs or feet are typically symbolic of security feelings and/or feelings concerning mobility

No legs: pathological feelings of constriction and dependence

• Feeling of lack of autonomy; feeling of lack of autonomy
• Castration feelings; difficulty in accepting sexual desires

Crossed Legs: indicate defensiveness against sexual approaches

Long Legs: suggest a strong need or striving for autonomy

Short Legs: indicate feelings of immobility and constriction

Legs muscular on female figure: sexual role conflict

Broad stance: defiance of authority; ambivalence over striving for autonomy

Heavily shaded: at times a sign of homosexual panic
• Indicative of conflict concerning strivings for self-direction
• Indicative of repressed concern with sexuality, if drawn by female

Legs reinforced: assaultiveness

Legs and feet drawn first: strong indicator of discouragement and depression

Atrophied legs: feelings of weakness, inadequacy, growing sense of loss of power and autonomy due
to physical degeneration in involutional or seniles

Erasures or changes of legs (female figure): suggests conflict in the sexual areas

FEET

Elongated or Large Feet: associated with strong security needs and possible sexual factors (e.g. a need
to demonstrate virility, castration fears)
• Need for firm foundation and support need
• Need for security

Emphasis on Feet: indicate feelings of sexual inadequacy

• Possible aggressive/assault tendencies

Omission of Feet: indicate a feeling of constriction, with a lack of independence

• Loss of autonomy; feelings of helplessness
• Discouragement, withdrawal
• In children, shyness, aggressiveness, or emotional disturbance

Small Feet: indicate insecurity, constriction, or dependence; effeminacy (for male drawing)

Feet pointing in opposite direction: ambivalence especially about striving for independence

Clubbed Foot: immaturity and insecurity in footing

Figure on tiptoe: tenuous grasp on reality; need for flight from a frustrating environment
• Unusual ambition

Overdetailed: obsession

Very pointed with talon fingers: repressed hostility or hostile feelings that cannot be accepted

Phallus-like Foot: may be sexually inadequate or sexually preoccupied

Feet and legs drawn first: depression, discouragement

TOE

Emphasized: primitive aggression

Confined: confinement of aggression

COMBINED

Ankle and wrist small: effeminacy

Feet and hands dim or omitted: schizoid

Feet and legs drawn first: depression, discouragement

Full body with shaded or thin legs: feeling of decline associated with advance age (shaded legs maybe
homosexual anxiety)

Figure micrographic, with detail shading, erasures, and pressure variations: deep repression; neurotic
depression

Tiny figure, well-depicted figures: alcoholic, involutional, senile patient

Nude figure with hat: regression

Arms and legs tapering: effeminacy

Large legs and arms of male figure: assertiveness