Definition
Family Drawing is a widely used test in psychodiagnostic assessment that allows the clinician gain some understanding and awareness into the child’s perception of itself; the child’s perception of its parents; and “some indicators of the development of its mental organization” [1]. The family drawing is considered an optional tool for the investigation of the child’s mental representation of attachment to the parents synchronized with the developmental psychology concepts [1].
Description
The family drawing “projects the image of the family as perceived by the child in its growth” [1]. The family drawing also provides insight into the child’s “fantasies that combine the child’s subjective life experiences and their meetings with the objective outside world [1].” There are several ways to analyze children’s family drawings. One of the most widely used projective drawing techniques is the Kinetic Family...
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References
Piperno, F., Di Biasi, S., & Levi, G. (2007). Evaluation of family drawings of physically and sexually abused children. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 16, 389–397.
Burns, R. C., & Kaufman, S. H. (1970). Kinetic Family Drawings (K-FD): An introduction to understanding children through kinetic drawings. New York: Brunner/Mazel.
Kinetic family drawing. (2008). Retrieved on January 3, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_family_drawing.
Leon, K., Wallace, T., & Rudy, D. (2007). Representations of parent-child alliances in children’s family drawings. Social Development, 16(3), 440–459.
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© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
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Pender, R.R. (2011). Family Drawing. In: Goldstein, S., Naglieri, J.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Child Behavior and Development. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79061-9_1097
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79061-9_1097
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-77579-1
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