Graphology at Home-Lesson 21-Draw a Person

Navigation: Main page

 Print this page Comment article

Unleash Your Inner Psychic!
Ultimate Psychic Success Course Incl. Manuals & Audios.

Author: Joel Engel

Article source: http://www.articledeshboard.com/. Used with author's permission.

Vast research was done among several psychoanalysts and psychologists into human figure drawings. The subject would be asked to draw a person, being given as little information as possible in order not to lead the subject in any particular way. The subject nevertheless would frequently ask the following kinds of questions and make several comments. Whom should I draw, should it be a stick person or the whole body? I don't know how to draw. I hope you don't show it to anyone, etc. When the subject does draw, he is actually revealing how he sees himself, as this is a picture of the self. The following is a list of personality traits and how they are identified in a sketch. For the highest degree of accuracy, the subject should draw two or more sketches. Identical drawings, especially those that deviate from the norm, are regarded as conclusive evidence that the subject possesses the trait.

A:
Affection deprivation/dependence/possible identification with mother: button on clothing over chest of figure; pockets.
Aggression/ambition: more than five fingers.
Aggression/criticality/masculinity: angular shaped body.
Aggression/depersonalization fears: heavy thick lines in formation of body.
Aggression/poorly adjusted: few curves, many sharp edges in formation of body.
Aggressive content: daggers, guns, spears, etc.
Aggressive/energetic: strong arms, male subject.
Aggressive/expansive: large, same sex figure.
Aggressive tendency/anti-social personality: heavy shading, figure clothed with toes exposed, gun.
Aggressiveness: powerful hands, toes exposed, squared shoulders, weapons, well-defined teeth, and straight lines in formation of body.
Aggressive use of sexual characteristics/coquettishness: emphasis on female sex characteristics (female subject).
Ambition/drive: firm lines.
Ambition for accomplishment or acquisition/overt aggression: long arms.
Anti-social personality (psychopath): hands in pocket, heavy shading, and large figure.
Anxiety/aggression: shading.
Anxiety/depression: clouds.
Anxiety/emotional dependence/feeling of discomfort and restriction: small figures.
Anxiety/insecurity/repression/particularly with reference to area reinforced: reinforced lines.
Anxiety over difficulty with interpersonal relations or masturbatory guilt/ overt aggression: hands shaded.
Anxiety relative to sexual functions: shading in "private" area.
Anxiety/restlessness, possible neurotic tendency, conflict area: erasures.
Anxiety/uncertainty: short, sketchy strokes.
Apprehensive, neurotics, catatonics and chronic schizophrenics: faint lines.
Aspirations exceed opportunities/environment viewed as excessively constraining: figure too large for page.
Assaultiveness: hair, eyes and arms reinforced; large fingers; foot emphasized; large legs and arms of male figure; stands with legs far apart.
Assaultiveness/infantile aggression: fingers; no hands; arms and hands of male figure large.
Assertiveness: straight-lined strokes in formation of body.
Asthmatic tendency: long and thin lines; mouth omitted.
Auditory eroticism: hand at "private" area; well-defined teeth.
Auditory hallucinations/paranoid or schizoid/ear injury or hearing disability/sensitive to attitudes of others/passive homosexual conflict or tendency: ear emphasized or enlarged.
Awareness of physical impulses with effort to control them: excessively large neck.

B:
Body narcissism/egocentricity/immaturity: same sex figure unclothed and carefully rendered.
Breaks in judgment/voyeurism (depending on area): transparencies.

C:
Castration fears or wishes: nose cut off (castration may be projected on opposite sex where nose is shaded).
Change against spontaneous reaction to situation as symbolized by detail first depicted: change of detail in drawing.
Character disorder such as anti-social personality or psychosis: deviant
drawing with little evidence of anxiety.
Chest fixation/voyeuristic tendency: V-neckline on male, female subject.
Compensation for difficulty with interpersonal relations or masturbatory guilt: hands exaggerated.
Compensation for felt inadequacy: massive shoulders on male (male subject).
Compensation for felt weakness/guilt: large hands.
Compensation for felt weakness/indecision: chin exaggerated.
Compensation for inadequacy/indecision/fear of responsibility: chin emphasized.
Compensatory fantasy aggrandizement: drawing that fills the page.
Compliance/feeling of domination by others: puppet.
Compulsive body image problem as in early schizophrenia: joints, fingers, and fingernails, carefully depicted.
Compulsive/dependent/indecisive: elbows and joints stressed.
Conception of self as dependent/helpless/insignificant: arms dangling at the sides, entreating facial expression, tiny same sex figure.
Concern about sufficiency of intellect (brain damage, retardation)/ pride over intellect/intellectual aspirations (with possible grandiosity)/introspective of fantasy/preoccupied/somatic head symptoms: head enlarged.
Conflict area: break in line, erasures, omissions, reinforcement, and shading.
Conflict over interpersonal relations/possible thought disorder: head drawn last.
Conflict relative to specific part of body: distortion of the particular part.
Constricted erotic response/limited heterosexual experience/somatic sexual dysfunction: female characteristics underemphasized, female subject.
Constricted/pedantic: minute detailing.
Constriction/defensiveness/lack of assertion: rigid posture.
Contemptuous attitude/tendency to think in terms of derisive social stereotypes: broad, flared or hooked nose.
Coquettishness/seductiveness/self-display: long lashes.

D:
Decisive: uninterrupted straight lines.
Dejection/feeling of guilt/lack of vitality: shoulders drooping.
Denial or repression of physical drives/immaturity/regression: lower section of body omitted.
Dependence on maternal figure: maternal figure rather than female sex object (male subject), male receiving something of value from female; torso of female upper half-emphasized (male subject).
Dependency: chest emphasis, buckles, buttons, concave mouth, mid-line emphasis, navel, pockets.
Dependency/desire for affection: overextended reaching arms.
Dependency/feminine tendency/lack of assertion/emotional: circular strokes in formation of the body.
Dependency/helplessness: fewer than five fingers.
Dependency/immaturity/inadequacy and maternal dependence: buckle.
Dependency/nutritional needs: long, weak arms.
Dependent/oral-erotic: mouth markedly full, open or oval.
Dependent/psychopath: pocket emphasis.
Depersonalization/feeling of being controlled by outside forces: robot for male figure (male subject).
Depressed/inadequate/withdrawn/schizophrenic: very faint line.
Depressed state: acceptance of task to draw sketch with minimum protest, good initial performance, followed by obvious fatigue and discontinuance of task.
Depression: narrow neck.
Depression/discouragement: feet and legs drawn first.
Desire to be woman/feminine identification: back of male figure to observer, male subject.
Desire to escape from situation/fear/loneliness/mistrust: sitting on edge of chair.
Difficulty in social contact/fear of aggressive impulses/passivity as defense against aggressive impulses: arms pressed to sides.
Difficulty with interpersonal relations/masturbatory guilt: hands hidden.
Discouragement/withdrawal: feet omitted.
Disdain/refinement: trim eyebrows.
Dissatisfaction