Survey The House Tree Person Technique example essay topic

308 words
This is my research paper on Art Therapy for my freshman year. I am very interested in this topic and eager to learn more. If you are also interested in Art Therapy, or working is this field, or want to give your opinion on my paper, please don't hesitate to email me or sign my guestbook. Please take time to fill out a survey for my next research. Thank you! SURVEY The House-tree-Person technique is one of well-known psychoanalytic tasks, which is widely used as a psychoanalytic approach in art therapy.

In the House-Tree-Person technique, the client is told to draw a house, a tree and a person on a white paper. The figure gives the therapist some indication of how the client perceives himself of herself in the world (the figure is usually considered to be a reflection of the self) (Freshman and Fry rear 88). For instance, the branches of the Tree overextended upward or outward frequently mirror the subject's over striving for achievement. Planning of the windows against the wall of the House so that the side of the House serves also as one side of the windows implies feelings of insecurity. If only a part of the Person is drawn in a profile view (for example, head in profile, body in front view), it appears to reflect an evasive attitude in social relations. Lack of many details, incomplete wholes, and use fo very faint lines are a combination found in subjects who are deeply depressed.

A ground line sloping downward and away from the drawn whole on either side may reflect a feeling of isolation, exposure, and helplessness in the face of environmental pressures (Hammer 9). Hence, the House-Tree-Person is a diagnostic technique that is useful in the art therapy situation.