The Impact of Attachment Style on the Family Drawings of School-Aged Children

Guido Veronese,Marco Castiglioni,Rossella Procaccia

doi:10.2174/1874350101407010009

Abstract

Objective: Primary school children's representations of themselves and their attachment figures were explored by assessing their family drawings. The main aim of the study was to empirically explore differences in the representations of children with secure versus insecure attachment. The study was theoretically informed by attachment theory and methodologically based on widely-used systems for analysing children’s drawings. Method: The Separation Anxiety Test was used to evaluate the attachment styles of 117 children (aged 6-10 years). This led to the identification of three groups, similar in age and gender distribution, with three different attachment styles (secure, anxious-ambivalent and avoidant). Each participant was asked to draw a family and the drawings produced were coded on 8 global scales and evaluated for the presence of 35 specific markers divided into five categories (characteristics of the figures; use of space; completeness of representation; emotional-affective tone; overall characteristics of the representation). Results: The drawings of securely attached children featured more positive markers, associated with a stable and well-integrated sense of self and others, whereas insecure children produced more markers of instability and negative emotion, with some interesting differences between anxious-ambivalent and avoidant attachment styles. Conclusion: Despite its limitations, the study confirmed that family drawings are a valid instrument for evaluating how children represent attachment, thereby facilitating early intervention to prevent later adjustment difficulties.

Highlights

Drawing is widely acknowledged within clinical and developmental psychology to be an effective instrument for assessing children’s cognitive, affective and emotional characteristics [1]
Despite its limitations, the study confirmed that family drawings are a valid instrument for evaluating how children represent attachment, thereby facilitating early intervention to prevent later adjustment difficulties
There is a well-established tradition of using family drawing in clinical practice because it offers a representation of children’s perspectives on the overall dynamics in their family and on their own position in the family group [9, 10]

Summary

Introduction

Drawing is widely acknowledged within clinical and developmental psychology to be an effective instrument for assessing children’s cognitive, affective and emotional characteristics [1]. Children naturally tend to use drawing as a medium for expressing themselves and communicating in a non-threatening way [2], when undergoing increased stress and verbal communication could be problematic [3,4,5,6,7]. The fact that drawing bypasses verbal channels of expression allows children to represent nonconscious elements of their mental models that they might find challenging to communicate in words [8]. Drawings are generally adopted on clinical and theoretical grounds, but as yet there is not a solid empirical basis for their use, despite the numerous attempts in this direction reported in the literature [9, 11,12,13]. Much of the empirical work on projective drawings has relied on case studies, with little scope for generalizing from the results

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Methods

Results

Conclusion