«Η χρήση του παιδικού ιχνογραφήματος ως ψυχοδιαγνωστικό εργαλείο προσέγγισης της ψυχολογίας παιδιών & εφήβων»

Abstract

Taking into consideration Fleck’s relevant passages (1996) according to which a child’s drawing is a statement that could not be verbalized or a voiceless cry for help that had not been heard up to that time, it can be easily inferred that the children’s drawings-paintings can be used as significant tools of detection of their inner world. These drawings offer the chance to track mental states of anxiety, phobia, jealousy, isolation or incidents of violence that sometimes cannot be found in a different way. Thus, they constitute a detection channel of the psychological profile not only of children of pre-school age but also of school age and even adolescents. They are the projection of thoughts and emotions and an essential message to the external world which has to be decoded and processed by the appropriate interdisciplinary team, since it is possible that the child be restricted by the words and express himself better through them.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and categorize the main features of the evolutionary stages of children's painting skills and the analysis of a child’s painting by emphasizing the fields related with the position of the painting on the paper, the lines, the outlines, the colors and the content. Moreover, special reference is made to the projective tests as indicators of psychometry. The ways with which the psychopathological entities are interpreted through projection plans are of great interest. Observations, reports and conclusions are verified by the presentation of corresponding drawings, in order to support and clarify the content of this presentation.