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Human figure drawings of schizophrenics, manies and normals were compared to identify quantitative and qualitative deviations in the drawings of the patient groups. The sample consisted of 28 schizophrenics and 25 manic patients drawn from OPD of Institute of Mental Health & Hospital Agra. A group of 30 normal persons was also drawn from general population to serve as control. Draw-A-Person Test (Machover, 1949) was administered on each participant. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of drawing was performed. The results indicated that qualitative aspects differentiated the groups more than the quantitative dimensions.
Key Words : Human Figure Drawing
The interest in drawing has a long and well-documented history. Good Enough (1926) reported that an article by Ebenezer Cooke appeared in England as early as in 1885 that described development stages in children's drawings. The human figure drawing is used both as a measure of mental maturity and mental disorder. The exponents of projective drawing technique are Machover (1949, 1953, 1960), Levy (1958), Hammer (1958) and Jolies (1952).
The experiences and experimentation with human figure drawing has revealed that it could be valuable aid in the evaluation of pathological traits. Kay (1978) evaluated human figure drawings according to schizophrenic subtype. Significant differences appeared in comparison groups. Ericson et al. (1996) tested the hypothesis that freehand human figure drawing can be used as a complementary screening instrument to differentiate between demented elderly people and healthy controls. An examination of the drawings of 668 elderly participants showed quite clearly that the body details and the height decrease with decreasing cognitive functioning. Demented people place their figure in the upper left corner of the sheet.
Harrower and associates (1975) observed that hypertension/coronary group, malignant tumor group and emotional disturbance group are different from their specific control groups on human figure drawing. Verma et al (1967) reported that the drawings of children undergo many changes with increasing age...