Drawing Cure
Children's Drawings as a Psychoanalytic Instrument
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3856131 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Barbara Wittmann (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 251-272 |
| Publication date | 2010-09-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Configurations (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1063-1801 • E-ISSN: 1080-6520 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/con.2010.0016 |
| PMID | 22073442 |
| OpenAlex | W2012576733 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 4 |
This essay deals with the special case of drawings as psychoanalytical instruments. It aims at a theoretical understanding of the specific contribution made by children's drawings as a medium of the psychical. In the influential play technique developed by Melanie Klein, drawing continuously interacts with other symptomatic (play) actions. Nonetheless, specific functions of drawing within the play technique can be identified. The essay will discuss four crucial aspects in-depth: 1) the strengthening of the analysis's recursivity associated with the graphic artifact; 2) the opening of the analytic process facilitated by drawing; 3) the creation of a genuinely graphic mode of producing meaning that allows the child to develop a "theory" of the workings of his own psychic apparatus; and 4) the new possibilities of symbolization associated with the latter. In contrast to classical definitions of the psychological instrument, the child's drawing is a weakly structured tool that does not serve to reproduce psychic processes in an artificial, controlled setting. The introduction of drawing into the psychoanalytic cure is by no means interested in replaying past events, but in producing events suited to effecting a transformation of the synchronic structures of the unconscious
Cognitive science · Epistemology · Human–computer interaction · Linguistics · Psychic · Psychoanalysis · Psychoanalytic theory · Psychotherapist · Unconscious mind · Child Therapy and Development · Computer Science · Philosophy · Psychoanalysis and Psychopathology Research · Psychological Testing and Assessment · Psychology
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |