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Picture projection material for child psychotherapy
,Re,0
TI]EMA 24
have sought to examine prevailing philosophy and technique of psychotherapy with delinquents and Io evolve new approaches based on grealcr therapist activity rather than classic passivity, concretely applied to the needs of the impulsive delinquent with a low frustration threshold.
P I C T U R E PROJ-:r2TION M A T E R I A L FOR CHILD PSYCHOTHERAPY R. Vr PICKFORD .\:ot~e Dame Child Guido.nee Clinic, Gtasgo~
IScot&:nd)
Details are given of the use of a series of 120 simple line drawings for child psychotherapy. The pictures are also u~ful for obtaining more complete information about the emotional problems of clinic children and others. The.',' should be s h o ~ to the child one at a time and about six at each session, and the child should be invited to tell a story about each picture, They are probably most appropriate for children of pro-adolescent age, who tend to look upon Lowenfeld's World Material as too childish for their attention. The-therapist should follow in his mind the unconscious phantasies expressed in the stories, and meet them with analytic understanding, so that the child is able to communicate and share his inner problems and conflicts, and to try out in verbal form his repressed phantasies upon an adult who does not become anxious or retaliate. In this way the phantasies may be brought into relation with reality. The pictures are being used in the Child Guidance Clinics in Glasgow and elsewhere, and a brief report is given of results with 85 boys and 44 girls between 5 and 15 years of age, with I.Q.'s running from 81 to 155. The most frequent symptoms for which children were referred for treatment were enuresis, stammering or stuttering and aggressive or difficult behaviour. In 41 reports the pictures were said to be of diagnostic, and in 50 of therapeutic value. In 42 oases their value was not assessed, and in 9 they were said to be of no value. The data do not suggest that they are more effective vd.'th girls or with boys, or that they are better for older or for younger children, or for children of higher or of lower i.Q2s. They are good in ax~ ali-rotmd way. The report gives an analysis of some of the stories told by five of the children treated by the writer. These analyses show how the stories reveal
KLINISCHE PSYCItOEOGIE
861
important new information about the children's emotional problems, and how the depressive, prohibitive, punitive, retaliatory, aggressive, destructive and anti-social nature of the phantasies underlying the stories gradually changes towards more permissive and constructive patterns during the treatment. It is therefore suggested that these pictures would be valuable as additional material for use in child guidance clinics, when in the hands of suitable psychologists and psychotherapists, and when familiar forms of play therapy are not appropriate. The speaker is grateful to Mr. John S. Struthers for his help in a statistical analysis nf the stories about the pictures given by about 130 children.
AN I N D U C T I V E M E T H O D F O R D E T E R M I N I N G S I G N I F I C A N T ASPECTS O F T H E RESPONSES O F M E N T A L L Y H A N D I C A P P E D CHILDREN TO THE THEMATIC APPERCEPTION THE MICHIGAN PICTURE TEST
TEST A N D
F. A. MULLEN Chicago, Ill. (USA)
Few existing psychological instruments are appropriate for evaluating the personality characteristics of mentally handicapped children. Faced with the problem of measuring the relative effectiveness of different teaching procedures with this group of children, a research team in the Chicago public schools decided to use, among other techniques, a projective measure adapted from the Thematic Apperception Test and the Michigan Picture Test. From these ~ ' o rests, after preliminary exploration to determine which pictures stimulated the most significant responses from this group of children, ten cards were selected. These were presented to 680 mentally handicapped children, aged 6 to 12, at the beginning of the experiment and repeated at one and two year intervals. The stories told by the children in response to the pictures were recorded verbatim, and later subjected to analysis, in the process of developing a scoring system. Extensive additional data were available on the same 680 children. Rather than setting up desired ratings to be obtained from the pro-. jective test and deductively deciding that certain types of responses ought to contribute to those ratings, an inductive method of building a scoring
TI]EMA 24
have sought to examine prevailing philosophy and technique of psychotherapy with delinquents and Io evolve new approaches based on grealcr therapist activity rather than classic passivity, concretely applied to the needs of the impulsive delinquent with a low frustration threshold.
P I C T U R E PROJ-:r2TION M A T E R I A L FOR CHILD PSYCHOTHERAPY R. Vr PICKFORD .\:ot~e Dame Child Guido.nee Clinic, Gtasgo~
IScot&:nd)
Details are given of the use of a series of 120 simple line drawings for child psychotherapy. The pictures are also u~ful for obtaining more complete information about the emotional problems of clinic children and others. The.',' should be s h o ~ to the child one at a time and about six at each session, and the child should be invited to tell a story about each picture, They are probably most appropriate for children of pro-adolescent age, who tend to look upon Lowenfeld's World Material as too childish for their attention. The-therapist should follow in his mind the unconscious phantasies expressed in the stories, and meet them with analytic understanding, so that the child is able to communicate and share his inner problems and conflicts, and to try out in verbal form his repressed phantasies upon an adult who does not become anxious or retaliate. In this way the phantasies may be brought into relation with reality. The pictures are being used in the Child Guidance Clinics in Glasgow and elsewhere, and a brief report is given of results with 85 boys and 44 girls between 5 and 15 years of age, with I.Q.'s running from 81 to 155. The most frequent symptoms for which children were referred for treatment were enuresis, stammering or stuttering and aggressive or difficult behaviour. In 41 reports the pictures were said to be of diagnostic, and in 50 of therapeutic value. In 42 oases their value was not assessed, and in 9 they were said to be of no value. The data do not suggest that they are more effective vd.'th girls or with boys, or that they are better for older or for younger children, or for children of higher or of lower i.Q2s. They are good in ax~ ali-rotmd way. The report gives an analysis of some of the stories told by five of the children treated by the writer. These analyses show how the stories reveal
KLINISCHE PSYCItOEOGIE
861
important new information about the children's emotional problems, and how the depressive, prohibitive, punitive, retaliatory, aggressive, destructive and anti-social nature of the phantasies underlying the stories gradually changes towards more permissive and constructive patterns during the treatment. It is therefore suggested that these pictures would be valuable as additional material for use in child guidance clinics, when in the hands of suitable psychologists and psychotherapists, and when familiar forms of play therapy are not appropriate. The speaker is grateful to Mr. John S. Struthers for his help in a statistical analysis nf the stories about the pictures given by about 130 children.
AN I N D U C T I V E M E T H O D F O R D E T E R M I N I N G S I G N I F I C A N T ASPECTS O F T H E RESPONSES O F M E N T A L L Y H A N D I C A P P E D CHILDREN TO THE THEMATIC APPERCEPTION THE MICHIGAN PICTURE TEST
TEST A N D
F. A. MULLEN Chicago, Ill. (USA)
Few existing psychological instruments are appropriate for evaluating the personality characteristics of mentally handicapped children. Faced with the problem of measuring the relative effectiveness of different teaching procedures with this group of children, a research team in the Chicago public schools decided to use, among other techniques, a projective measure adapted from the Thematic Apperception Test and the Michigan Picture Test. From these ~ ' o rests, after preliminary exploration to determine which pictures stimulated the most significant responses from this group of children, ten cards were selected. These were presented to 680 mentally handicapped children, aged 6 to 12, at the beginning of the experiment and repeated at one and two year intervals. The stories told by the children in response to the pictures were recorded verbatim, and later subjected to analysis, in the process of developing a scoring system. Extensive additional data were available on the same 680 children. Rather than setting up desired ratings to be obtained from the pro-. jective test and deductively deciding that certain types of responses ought to contribute to those ratings, an inductive method of building a scoring