PARENTAL ADEQUACY AND THE pORT
Parental Value and Adequacy as Reflected in the Perception-of-Relationships Test:
Empirical Data on Seventeen Statistically Significant Signs
Barry Bricklin, Ph.D.
Adjunct Associate Professor
The Institute for Graduate Clinical Psychology, Widener University
with special assistance from
Michael H. Halbert
Consultant to Mangement
Bala Cynwyd, PA
Abstract
This article summarizes approximately 40 years of research with the Perception-of-Relationships Test, representing a sample population of 1,508 cases. New normative, reliability, validity and interrater agreement data are summarized.
It also features our pioneer efforts to use a group normative reference standard, to add to the single-participant data that already exist. A single-participant reference helps one to understand the specific value a particular parent has to a specific child. The group reference used in this research allows one to red-flag when a parent may have negative value to any child.
Four groups of children were formed in which the parents represented different levels of caretaking adequacy. Groups I (n=16) included children from intact families. Group II (n=34) included children from parents involved in mild custody disputes. In both Groups I and II the parents showed no clinical or test evidence of poor parenting skills. Group III (n=40) featured continually fighting parents who used their children as message-carrying pawns. Group IV (n=40) represented seriously neglectful or abusive parents.
Twenty-three signs on the Perception-of-Relationships Test were hypothesized to appear differentially in these groups. Seventeen reached a statistical significance level equal to or less than .05. Several statistical and theoretical caveats were raised about using drawing-based research to formulate testable clinical assertions.
Drawings As Projective Tests
One goal of this paper is to show that drawings can be helpful in assessment despite their generally poor press (Garb, Wood, Lilienfeld, & Nezworski, 2002, p. 459; Thomas & Jolley, 1998). A second goal, an exemplar of the first, is to show that drawings can generate empirically-derived hypotheses about the adequacy of parents both from a group perspective, as well as from contexts of dyadic and other family systems. This approach allows an evaluator to assess not only how a child assigns value to caretaker A as opposed to B, which requires a single-participant reference, but also to recognize when a caretaker may not meet adequate standards of parenting from a normative perspective, which requires a group reference. Existing and new data collected for 40 years on the Perception-of-Relationships Test (PORT) will address both goals (Bricklin, 1989, 1992, 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999; Bricklin & Elliot, 1995, 1997, 2000, 2002a, 2002b, in press-a, in press-b; Bricklin & Halbert, in press-a, in press-b). Four caveats will be detailed. Drawings can yield clinically specific assertions only if precise access-code stimuli (defined later) are presented to the respondents. Second, there is a limited range of specific behaviors drawings seem able to predict. Third, it is difficult (but not impossible) to find validating evidence of these behaviors. Fourth, predictor models must be able to specify the system-specific contexts in which interpersonal predictions will be manifested. System complexities have created confusion in attempts to validate drawing-derived data. Few clinically specific assertions will be accurate other than within a limited number of contexts.
This paper is divided into two separate sections. The first section summarizes the existing research on the PORT. The second section, beginning with the sub-heading, “The Current Study,” reports the first use of the PORT with a group reference.
The Perception-of-Relationships Test
The PORT generates information relevant to family assessment. A core measure reflects the degree to which child-caretaker interactions lead to comfortable and effective behaviors on the part of the child. It consists of seven tasks, each on its own page. Task I asks the child to draw each parent. Task II presents a line drawing of a female figure and then a male figure. The instructions are “Here is Mom/Dad. Put yourself somewhere in the picture.” Task III has two line drawings of parent representations to the left and right of the page and the child is asked to put him- or herself in the picture. Task IV is a request to draw the family. Task V is a request for the child to draw his or her family “doing something.” Task VI has a horse between two renderings of homes, one of which says “Mom” on it and the other “Dad.” The instructions are “Here’s a little horsey. It’s time for the horsey to go into his/her house. Please draw a line into the house where the horsey will go.” Task VII consists of three cards. The first shows a little doggie asleep in a bed having a dream of its mommy. The child is asked what that dream is. The second part has the dog dreaming of the daddy with the same instructions. The third part asks: “ Which dream is nicer?”
Prior research shows that
each task elicits associations of the child operating within a specific family
system. Tasks I through IV reflect a
child’s: overall relationship with each parent; being actually or psychologically
alone with each parent; being in the real or psychological presence of both
parents; wished-for ideal; view of each parent’s supportiveness of family
unity. Tasks VI and VII reflect a
child’s conscious belief systems, and allow a comparison between how a child
responds when aware and not aware of what is being revealed. The scores yielded by the PORT will be
described later. Validity data, have
been gathered on 1,508 cases (Bricklin
& Elliot, 2002a, 2002b, in press-a, in press-b; Bricklin & Halbert, in
press-b). New test re-test data on 127
cases is also described.
Background of the Current Research
Between 1961 and 2002, thousands of PORTs were reviewed by our research teams. Some cases were litigated, most not. We had collateral and follow-up life-history information with each PORT, often collected over a 10-year range. Consistent relationships between certain signs on a PORT and other independent evidence of parental competence were noted. From information gathered between 1961 and 2002, it was possible to formulate hypotheses about the presence of these signs and independent evidence of parenting adequacy. Four groups were formed, one of parents not engaged in custody disputes showing no evidence of parental pathology or interparental hostility and the second of children from custody cases in which there were minor disputes but none involved parenting adequacy. The third group consisted of children of parents who exhibited intense interparental conflict (Bricklin & Elliot, 2000, p. 501). High-conflict caretakers, as they engage in continual battles, become poor parents (citations given later). The fourth group consisted of children whose parents had physically or sexually abused or seriously neglected them.
The PORT was originally designed to be used with a single-participant reference standard. A reference standard is the entity to which a measurement score is compared in order to derive relevance for a specific decision. It may be a previously examined group, a previously examined individual (the single-participant paradigm), or criterion-referenced (arbitrary expert opinion). (Measurement theory issues, the adequacy of the measurement units used by the PORT are discussed in Bricklin & Halbert, in press-a.) Since the PORT’s original goal was to compare how a child assigns value to Parent A compared to B, the single-participant reference was employed: a subject’s scores are compared to other of his or her own scores. The measurement goal was to understand a particular caretaker’s value to a unique and specific child. The current research uses a group reference. The use of both allows an evaluator to know how a child assigns differential value to each caretaker, and to see how each parent’s skills, as reflected in the PORT, resemble those of known groups of other parents—parents whose skills range from adequate to non-adequate. Before presenting the new data, existing data are presented to provide necessary background information.
PORT Data, 1961 to 2002
The
PORT Predictor and Criterion Concepts and Measures
Independent validating criteria focused on the degree to which child-caretaker interactions lead to comfortable and behaviorally competent behavior in the child. How these concepts were operationalized is spelled out in Bricklin & Halbert, in press-a, based, in part, on theory and research best described by Bargh (1997), Horney (1945) and Zajonc (1980, 1998). A brief description follows.
PORT estimations of the
parent with whom a child more comfortably and efficiently shared information
were compared to estimations derived from extensive observations, often over
several years. These observations were
made by mental health professionals from criteria other than PORT scores. The original observation protocol is
summarized. Emphasis was on (mainly
nonverbal) ways a child demonstrated comfort and effectiveness during or
immediately subsequent to interactions with a caretaker in spontaneous,
structured and instructional contexts.
The basic dimensions were a child’s movements: toward (positive);
against (aggressive); away from (fearful).
Research interest was on what impact parental behavior had on a child,
not on what parents knew or did. Here
are a few of the positive categories scored when a child was either speaking
(initiating or responding), just listening, or listening and acting: relaxed
and/or smiling facial muscles; leans toward other person; maintains reasonable
eye contact; willing to ask questions; noting from whom the child most
frequently and spontaneously seeks help.
Following is the statistical profile, essential for an understanding of
the validity data. Note that these data
are attained with our team’s specific
procedures. We begin with a short
getting-to-know-each-other phase (about five minutes), followed by a 15-minute
phase in which the child is presented with games and tasks slightly below his
or her ability levels, to see how each parent behaves when the child does not
really need help. This is followed by a
one-hour phase in which games and tasks are used that are slightly beyond the
child’s ability levels. This encourages
parent-child interactions and hence magnifies our ability to observe who a
child turns to for help, and how each caretaker responds. This phase is more highly standardized than
the others, and is the phase that is scored.
In two samples, (n=60; n=37)
the ages, ethnicity and SESs were directly similar to the norms given elsewhere
in this paper. Each child was observed
with both parents present, so he or she could make choices about initiated or
responsive interactions. In a one-hour
session, the distribution of positive scores ranged from zero to 12. At the outset of our research we tracked
positive and negative reactions. Our research goals were adequately achieved
if we counted only positive reactions, a practical “plus,” since fewer raters
are needed. The mean number of positive
reactions was 7.4; the Standard Deviation was 1.2. Six to nine positive reactions characterized 70 percent of the
cases. A point difference greater than
two represents a significant difference between two caretakers. The mean score of 7.4 positive responses per
hour may appear low, but note that each child spent much of the hour immersed
in task problem-solving, not interacting with the parents. These results are not comparable to protocols that count the number of positive and
negative interactions initiated by
parents (Lahey, Conger, Atkeson & Treiber, 1984; Kerig & Lindahl,
2002). Interrater agreement (three
raters) was high, 90 percent, partly because the range of categories used was
narrow: A>B; B>A; A@B; neither A nor B. The actual number of positive interactions
noted by each rater achieved an agreement rate of 82 percent.
Legal decision makers render
decisions in two main categories: legal custody (the right and responsibility
to make key decisions for a child) and a time-share plan (or physical
custody). In the former category, three
choices are typically used: sole custody; shared custody; and very rarely, neither
parent should have custody. (Nowadays,
judges seem to favor shared legal custody, unless there are blatant reasons to
exclude a parent from this role.) As
for time-share plans, few judges venture beyond two choices: sole custody or
joint custody. If the former is chosen,
the non-custodial parent is usually given a boilerplate arrangement in which he
or she has the child every other weekend, plus an overnight in the middle of
those weeks when he or she does not have the child for the weekend. When
complex time-share plans are awarded, they are almost always worked out by the
parents and/or their attorneys, not by the data or the judge, and are
usually based on parental-convenience, not best-interest, factors. This choice range has advantages in a
research setting; it decreases hair-spitting arguments about how much better
one parent is than the other. Thus,
mental health professionals who offered validity designations used categories
that reflect the narrow range of choices used by our legal system. In real life, mental health professionals
can and do offer more complex plans.
Newly emerging research (Kelly & Lamb, 2000) is encouraging the
employment of complex time-share plans, but is considered controversial at the
moment (Solomon & Biringen, 2001).
Judges usually ignore complex plans unless the two sides agree on their
own to implement them. Note that PORT
data are more directly relevant to time-share plans than legal custody. Note also that it has never been claimed
PORT data can adequately reflect an overall best-interests determination.
The formal statistical data
follow. Data collected from 1961 to
2002 yielded a sample of 1,708 cases, 858 females and 850 males. The mean age was 7.76 and the SD 0.17 in a
sample of 1,581 cases. These numbers
were 7.87 and 2.101 in 127 cases. The
SES was low-to-high-middle and the ethnicity 94 percent caucasian and six
percent all other. The Parent-of-Choice
or POC categories yielded by the PORT, matched to the range of choices required
by the legal system, do not yield a normal or symmetrical distribution, so
percent-of-agreement is a reasonable way to express our results, and are
inherently more user-friendly to those trying to understand statistics in legal
settings. Test selected POCs are never used to address ultimate issues or to
assign a caretaker to a legal category.
Overall, we have validity data on 1,381 cases evaluated between 1961 and
1997, and 127 cases investigated between 1997 and 2002.
The percent-of-agreement rates between PORT suggested POCs and those of independent experts based mostly on observations, tests (other than the PORT) and collateral interview data, are listed following the sample size, (the overall n=1,381). Structured task problem-solving by children with access to both parents, observed from behind a one-way screen by three psychologists (1961), n=30, 90 percent; courtroom judges (1964-1981), based on all data available, n=45, 89 percent; agreement with the Bricklin Perceptual Scales (BPS) choices (another data-based test, Bricklin, 1984) (1964-1981), n=23, 83 percent; courtroom judges (1981-1985), based on all data available, n=42, 95 percent; agreement with BPS choices (1981-1983), n=30, 84 percent; two psychologists, based on family therapy notes plus consultation with relevant therapists with families seen over two- to five-year intervals (1980-1985), n=30, 93 percent; courtroom judges (1986-1990), based on all data available, n=76, 93 percent; psychologists based on all clinical (except for PORT and BPS scores) and life-history data available (1995-1997), n=1,038, 89 percent. (Since judges may have been influenced by PORT data, the agreement rates between judges and PORT-derived POCs are offered as “information” and not validity evidence.)
In a current study (1997 to
2002), n=127 (Bricklin & Elliot, 2002b; Bricklin & Halbert, in
press-b), we investigated the association between future and concurrent
validity. Future validity indicated an
89 percent agreement rate between PORT choices for POCs calculated at Time-Point
1 with criterion designations made by independent mental health professionals
at Time-Point 2, eight months later.
Concurrent validity was assessed by comparing the PORT POCs obtained at
Time-Point 2 with the criterion designations made at Time-Point 2. The agreement rate was 91 percent. The overall average percent of agreement
between PORT choices for parent-of-choice and those from independent sources is
about 90 percent.
The most recent test-retest
data on the PORT over an 8-month period is shown in Table 1. TDS refers to Task-Difference Scores. The Task-Difference score or TDS indicates
the difference in scores earned by each parent. A TDS of seven would mean that one parent had seven more points
than the other. The frequency of each
TDS in our sample population is given in the next two columns: the first
indicates the frequency of a TDS at Test-Point 1 and the second at Test-Point
2. The other columns show how often
there was a change in POC from Test 1 to Test 2. PORT results are quite stable over the time interval
studied. Seven percent of the overall
cases showed a change in POC, and about 66 percent of these occurred where the
TDS was zero or one. If the TDS is
greater than one, the likelihood that the test and retest scores will show the
same POC is 97 percent. The likelihood
of change of POC increases sharply as the TDS moves toward zero or one. A TDS of 0 or 1 shows a 21 percent chance
the POC could change on retesting.
(Insert Table 1 about here)
Interrater reliability of
PORT scoring was obtained from two samples of seminar attendees (n=36; n=41),
in which more than half of the scorers had no prior experience with the
PORT. Four different
percent-of-agreement scores were obtained: (1) the points scored on Task I (the
most complex); (2) the POC on Task I; (3) the overall TDS score for all seven
tasks; (4) the overall POC based on seven tasks. The percent-of-agreement rates, respectively, were: 74; 90; 82;
92. Note carefully that the scale used
to score an individual PORT task (or a single BPS item) is ordinal. The only information
needed is rank-order, A>B, B>A, A=B.
This scale choice was deliberate, because we did not want to overly
influence an evaluator’s estimation of a given caretaker’s value to a child
based on but a single life-area.
Confusion is common here because the critical score in suggesting a POC,
the TDS in the case of the PORT, represents an interval scale, and may be used as such. The use of an interval scale with either the PORT (or BPS) allows
an evaluator to compare the PORT TDS (or the BPS Item-Difference Score) to how
children in general differentially assign value to each parent.
The Current Study
Selection of the
Experimental Groups and Clinical Hypotheses
Since this was our pioneer
attempt to use a group rather than single-participant reference (to see if the
PORT could red-flag various categories of parental adequacy), the decision was
made to use experimental groups that were either markedly different from one
another in representing parental adequacy, or, at least, in the degree of
existing family unity. In other words,
we were not, in these initial efforts, aiming to detect subtle
differences. As is the usual assumption
in our field, the thinking was that if our test predictors could not
differentiate blatant differences among groups, there would probably be little
hope they could pick up subtle differences.
Hence we conceptualized the
criteria for inclusion in the groups in a way that it would be literally
impossible for anyone who made an assignment of a case to a given group to be
at odds with any other person making such assignments.
Briefly, one group was to
consist of cases where the parents were married (i.e., the child tested with
the PORT was part of an intact family), and there was no clinical evidence of
poor parenting on the part of either caretaker.
The second group was
composed of children from divorced parents, but where there was no evidence of
individually poor parenting skills.
The third group was composed
of children from high-conflict parents, who had been enmeshed in bitter disputes
for at least two years.
The fourth group featured
children from parents who had had their parental rights terminated, or who had
been accused of substantiated abuse or neglect.
The formal criteria are
given a bit later.
The hypotheses were formulated
prior to group selection. The groups
were selected to be matched in age, intelligence and/or age-correct educational
placement, and socioeconomic status.
Any child diagnosed with ADHD was excluded from this study, although
prior research suggests this is not necessary since ADHD-children do not
manifest PORT test-retest instability nor caretaker-selection bias (Bricklin
& Elliot, 2002a, 2002b; Bricklin & Halbert, in press-b). Each group was formed so the children’s
ages, intellectual/educational levels and the incomes of the parents resembled
those in the overall population from which we have repeatedly drawn samples
between 1962 and 2002. The ranges,
means and standard deviations are presented following the descriptions of the
groups. The assignments of families to
the different groups were carried out by the author and at least one other
member of our research team in conjunction with input from the mental health
professionals involved with a given family, based on all of the clinical and
life history data available.
The cases to be included
were selected from among the thousands obtained between 1961 and 2002. The following conditions had to be true for
a case to become part of the overall pool of cases that were subsequently divided
into the four experimental groups. (1)
At least one PORT was in the file. (2)
Information existed on the child’s age, intellectual/educational and clinical
status. (3) Information was present on
parental income. (4) Clinical and
life-history data existed that included complete personal histories of each
caretaker and massive amounts of information on the history of each
marriage. The latter included detailed
investigations of each parent’s dyadic and family systems interactions with
each child. The forms used to gather
these data were published as parts of ACCESS: A Comprehensive Custody
Evaluation Standard System (Bricklin & Elliot, 1995). Specifically, these forms are called:
Child’s Access to Adult Parental Strengths (CAPS) (a detailed history of the
marriage and child-parent interactions), Personal Life-History Data, Family
Observations Interactions, and a variety of specific forms for pediatricians,
educators, mental health professionals, significant others and collateral
informants.
Following the formation of
the overall pool, at least two members of our research team reviewed each
file. All data were studied, except those from each PORT. As mentioned, it was our intention to set up
highly discrete groups. Since the
entrance criteria are sharply discrete, there were no disagreements between the
researchers about which of the four groups a given file was to be assigned
to. (The groups and other technical
criteria of inclusion are described immediately below.)
At this point, the pool of
cases was divided into the four groups described below. The next task, following the design of
symmetric distributions of ages, estimated intelligence and SES, the groups
were selected to be matched among themselves in these variables, and the means
were engineered to resemble those in the populations we have repeatedly drawn
samples from between 1961 and 2003.
These norms are reported a bit later, and overall norms are reported in
Bricklin & Halbert, in press-b.
Group I (n=16) were children
examined for minor psychological reasons, mostly educational
underachievement. There were two cases
of posttraumatic stress disorder (a dog in one case and an auto accident in
another) but none involved the quality of parenting.
Group II (n=34) were children whose parents were involved in mild custody disputes, centering on arguments over who could provide a better school, neighborhood, or extended family. All of the caretakers in Groups I and II met the criteria of the “good enough” parent. They encourage attachment appropriately and show an adequate understanding of children’s needs. More importantly, they display no serious negatives, for example, abuse, neglect, lengthy lapses in attentiveness or blatant episodes of losses of self control (Schutz, Dixon, Lindenberger, & Ruther, 1989, pp. 16-24).
Group III (n=40) consisted
of children whose parents were involved in continual conflict, often within the
courtroom, for two or more years. The
involved children were “caught in the middle,” used as message carriers to
deliver scathing messages from one parent to the other or to involved mental
health professionals (Bricklin & Elliot, 2000, p. 501; Doolittle &
Deutsch, 1999, p. 425-440). Research
shows parental adequacy sinks to a serious low point when parents are so
engaged (Bricklin & Elliot, 1995, pp. 38-40; Bricklin & Elliot, 2000,
pp. 501-505; Hoppe, 1993, 1997; Hoppe & Kenney, 1994, 1995, 1997).
Group IV (n=40) consists of
children in which the caretakers had either been threatened by the court with a
possible termination of parental rights or actually had them terminated in the
past and/or were accused of substantiated abuse or neglect. In order to match the parents in this group
in socioeconomic status to those in the others, and the children in
intelligence, the majority of these cases were derived from various private
practices. Agency-originated cases tend
to represent lower socioeconomic status levels. However, none of our data suggest that one gets different numbers
from agency cases. Note that the PORT
cannot be used in reference to any caretaker with whom the child has scant
contact. Overall data suggest that
caretaker-child contact is needed for several hours at least once every two to
three weeks.
Since all of the PORT signs
being investigated are negative in psychological implication, they were
predicted to occur with greater frequency among the cases in Groups III and IV
than among those in Groups I and II.
Normative Information on the
Experimental Groups
The range of ages for each
group was 6 years to 13 years. The mean
ages and standard deviations are as follows.
Group I: 8.9 years; SD = 1.87; Group II: 8.8 years; SD = 1.82; Group
III: 8.5 years; SD = 1.56; Group IV: 8.6 years; SD = 1.66. The chi squared value (df = 21) is
2.032. The p value is .9999. The groups are comparable in age.
The range of incomes for the
parents in each group was $30,000 to $70,000.
The means and standard deviations are as follows. Group I: 57.4; SD = 9.60; Group II: 56.9; SD
= 10.0; Group III: 55.2; SD = 10.2; Group IV: 55.5; SD = 9.50. The chi squared value (df = 21) is
7.032. The p value is .9980. The groups are comparable in income.
IQ scores were unavailable,
most evaluators having used abbreviated versions of standard intelligence
tests. The rule of inclusion was that
each child had to be in an age-appropriate grade, maintaining at least a “C”
average.
The PORT Signs Being
Investigated: Clinical Hypotheses
This research stemmed from
the observation that certain PORT signs appeared with high frequency among the
children whose caretakers experienced serious problems with their parenting
skills. But since the data were
gathered via comprehensive custody evaluations, we had much collateral
information available, pulled from psychological tests, observations,
interviews and documents. I was
therefore able to link each sign to existing clinical data and theory. The clinical hypothesis are offered to
suggest to clinicians what each sign might mean psychologically, and to suggest
foci for future research. While some
may seem speculative, there are empirical data and theoretical information
available to support them. Much derives
from the field investigating pre-wired motor functions in human behavior
(Calvin & Bickerton, 2001; Deacon, 1997), the research on how
body-experience shapes almost all psychological functions including reasoning
and the attribution of meaning (Cozolino, 2002, p. 147), and the
evolutionary-genetic psychological forces that may prompt human drawings
(Dissanayake, 2000). A major purpose in
presenting this research is to show that while young children do not have the words to describe some of the complex
perceptions I will ascribe to them, they do have inborn structures that allow them to experience and express such
experiences motorically.
Some of the signs were predicted
to occur only in relation to a particular caretaker (signs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8,
9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19). Signs
6, 11, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23 were considered “correctly predicted
manifestations” regardless of the caretaker involved, that is, the problem
could exist in multiple family systems.
Some signs may appear in either
context. This differentiation helps
detect when a particular caretaker is probably contributing more to the
problems than the other. The
terminology in italics are the names used to identify the PORT variables in
Table 2.
1.
The
child draws Two heads on a single
figure, one usually grimacing and the other relaxed. It has been found when the access-code figure is a serious
substance abuser, but at least adequate as a caretaker when not under the
influence. The clinical hypothesis is
that the child experiences the parent as a “dual” personality. Note that these signs may reflect
psychological conditions that are perceived by the child not only as “bad,” but
also as confusing or betrayals. A child
may be more “hurt” by a parent who had functioned at a 90 percent level in a
child’s perceptions, who then sinks to a 50 percent level, than by a 50 percent
parent who becomes a 40 percent parent.
While original PORT data, using a single-participant reference, focused
on how a specific child assigned psychological value to one parent compared to
another, with a group reference one can investigate whether parental behaviors,
as reflected in the PORT, seem hurtful to children in general.
2.
The
child draws Two figures when only one
is needed. For example, the child,
directed to “Draw your Mom,” instead draws one figure then crosses it out and
draws another.
3.
I
first ran into this sign at a workshop by Emanual Hammer (on a date I cannot
recall, at least 20 years ago). The
respondent makes a slash or X mark on
a figure drawing such that it penetrates both (lateral) body boundaries. Hammer reported that in adult populations
this sign was strongly suggestive of suicidal tendencies. I thought to myself that it would be a “hard
sell” in a courtroom to convince anyone that something that looked like a slip
of the pencil could have such serious implications. This very situation occurred.
A five year old girl had drawn a slash-mark through her figure on the
PORT task that asks her to draw herself in proximity with her mother. (This mother later had her parental rights
terminated in regard to another child.)
I did not know what to make of this sign in a child, because Hammer said
it was dangerous when drawn by an adult. I reported it as “possibly very
important information” in court. The
opposing attorney scoffed and said that such markings were “obviously
accidental.” I asked him if he would
respond the same way had a radiologist said that a tiny dot on an X-ray
represented cancer. “Would you say to
this radiologist: I don’t think it means that at all. I think it’s just some little dot that doesn’t mean anything.” (I have a hard time explaining to attorneys
that the implications of drawings are derived from follow-up databases, not
from clinical guesses.) Nevertheless,
the judge also thought the hypothesis of danger was ludicrous and took no
action. Over the next couple of weeks
this child managed to walk in front of a car (and luckily sustain only minor
injuries), fall into a neighbor’s swimming pool and almost drown, and a few
weeks later, when everyone realized how right my warning was, pull down a
boiling pot of hot chocolate from the stove over her head, badly scalding her. (She had to wear a hairpiece for many
years.) From a more empirical
perspective, to this day I have only seen this sign where the respondent had
some strong need to “X” him- or herself out of some situation, sometimes life. Interestingly, our data suggests that such
signs, for example, the X-mark, derive from innate “deep structures,” (Noam
Chomsky’s term, defined later) and not from learned sources. By “learned source” we refer to a situation
where the child has seen comic book use of X-marks to indicate negation. We have observed such signs in the PORTs of
children as young as 2 ½.
4.
A
severe Vertical misalignment is
scored, for example, when the head is placed in a vertical dimension far
removed from where the torso and legs are placed, even though the child finds
some way to connect the head to the rest of the drawing. Severe misalignments seem to represent
situations where a child has to bend him- or herself literally out of shape to
accommodate interactions with the access-code figure. The child cannot relax and be whoever he or she really is; the
child tries to find some way to accommodate interaction with the caretaker even
though this creates physical and mental anguish. Clinically, we see it only in cases where the child has an
ongoing and well documented conflicted relationship with the access-code
parent. We have never seen it in a case
where a child has a comfortable relationship with the access-code
caretaker.
5.
This
sign is scored when the child places either his or her back to a parent or the
parent’s back is placed toward the child’s front view (Back/front.) Our hypothesis
here is that there is something in the child’s perception of the relationship
such that direct interactions with the caretaker are avoided.
6.
This
sign is scored if the child only responds to Task VII, (Only VII), where the doggie is having dreams of Mom and then
Dad. We find this sign solely in
termination-of-parental-rights cases.
It is as if the child does not want to think about (and hence react to)
anything whatsoever about his or her relationship with either parent. The only thing such a child will permit him-
or herself to think about is a dream-for-a-better-future. A typical response is: “The doggie is with
his Mom/Dad, and they have a good time.”
No responses are offered to the other six tasks. Since this sign appears fairly frequently in
agency cases (12 percent), it has been suggested that a child who responds to
only one item may be showing wariness and anger toward authority figures, that
is, the mental health professionals at the agency. This may be true, but it is also true that we find this same rate
in non-agency cases and we still have
to wonder why Task VII, in which children interpret the word “dream” as an
invitation to wish for a better future, is the sole task to which they allow
themselves to respond. If giving only
one response represents anger at the evaluator, why does this behavior not
occur in relation to other PORT tasks?
7.
This
sign is scored when a human figure is drawn with the insides of the body
omitted, (No insides). The child draws a shell of body and the
inside area is blank. We suspected that
this would be clinically significant since it points to the presence of massive
repression. It is a visual analog of
the child’s wish to not experience any feeling or emotion within the body. It only occurs when the relationship with
the access-code caretaker has been exceedingly negative. In adults, it occurs with high frequency
among individuals suffering psychotic or borderline conditions.
8.
This
is scored when the child draws tiny figures which are less than ¼ of an inch
high in response to Task I and the figures are placed against the margin of the
paper. Our clinical hypothesis matches
what we have seen, that this occurs only in children who are frightened of the
access-code figure, (Tiny/margin).
9.
Task
VII shows a picture of a doggie asleep in a bed and the child is told the
doggie is having a dream about Mommy and, next, about Daddy. The child is asked to tell each dream. The sign is scored when violence or death is
mentioned in the child’s response. It
is also scored when the doggie to wants to commit suicide. This sign is called Violence VII.
10.
This
sign is called “severe parts not integrated.”
The body parts are drawn so that they have no contact among themselves,
for example, the head detached from the body.
Our hypothesis: this occurs when the child is not able to integrate
emotional information with cognitive information, (Parts not int.[s]).
11.
When
a child scribbles over something drawn, there is a conflict associated with the
access-code. This sign, called “Crosses out,” applies regardless of what
explanation the child gives. A child
drew himself and his family swimming in a pool. He drew his parents, and then hoping to represent water,
scribbled all over the drawing. This
child explained that what was drawn was water.
Our clinical observation is that a respondent’s motor responses are
always more important than how they are verbally explained. We find this sign where there is a rather
serious conflict between the respondent and the caretakers within some specific family system, for example, the family: all
together in the same place; trying to cooperate; and so forth. In the present case, the boy’s father was in
jail and his mother was a significant drug abuser. Our clinical interpretation was that this child is hurt and
conflicted over an inability of his parents to share happy times with him. We have also found this sign, along with the
characteristic attempt to “explain away” what is essentially a negation or
barrier (see item number 18, “Places
barriers”), in cases of substantiated abuse. For example, one child, when asked to draw his family, after
drawing the family, drew his bed in the upper left hand corner of the
page. He placed this bed within a
serious “barrier,” thick lines that completely enclosed it. He explained-away the barrier as a “bunk”
bed. One of his caretakers (an uncle)
was arrested in the near future for the continual sexual abuse of the boy in
the boy’s bed. Significantly, signs
like this often appear only when there has once been a decent relationship
between the child and the abuser. In
our experience, the less there has been an emotional bond that has been
violated by abuse, the less current problems in that relationship are likely to
show up on the PORT. Had this child
been molested by a stranger, the PORT manifestation may not have appeared. (Note well: drawing data should never be considered silver-bullets of
sexual abuse.)
12.
When the child draws an X-mark over any body part, (with the exception
of the whole body, covered above), we have another serious sign. It is often an X-mark over the mouth. It has been found almost exclusively in
alienation or intimidation cases, where the alienating or denigrating parent
has literally ordered the child not to speak to him or her about the other
parent. It typically shows up on Task
II, where the child is asked to draw him- or herself in the psychological
presence of each of the parents. If the
alienating parent is, for example, the father, the X-mark will show up on the
child’s mouth in reference to the father, but not the mother (X-mark, body part).
13.
This is scored when the parts of a drawing are not properly
integrated. The standard manifestation
of the sign, called parts not integrated, is when a child draws the arms
connected to the head rather than to the torso. This is another sign both theoretically and clinically of
discomfort in the psychological presence of the access-code figure (Parts not int.)
14.
Asymmetric parts occurs when one body part
is twice the size of another.
Asymmetries are hypothesized to indicate confusion. We find it almost exclusively where a once
good parent has become either permanently, or at least temporarily, a poor
parent, leaving the child highly perplexed.
(A chronically poor parent is probably not confusing to a child—hurtful
maybe, but not confusing.) A typical
example is when one parent, say the mother, is terrified about something in
reference to the father, although there is no strong evidence that the father
is doing anything negative. However,
this mother’s terror will affect the child.
One manifestation occurred where the mother believed her own mother’s
allegation (the maternal grandmother) that the father had committed sexual
abuse with the child. This could not be
substantiated, in spite of thorough investigations. The mother herself later came to disbelieve the allegation. Nevertheless, at the time the allegations
were made, the mother believed them, and basically kidnapped the child, keeping
her away from the father for a sustained length of time. The father had been the child’s primary
caretaker, since the mother had a job that kept her away from the home. Nevertheless, she had been a caring and
decent mother. This child was given the
PORT more than four times. (We have
conducted several studies to see if the PORT parent-of-choice varies according
to which caretaker brings the child to the testing session. The POC rarely changes, and when it does may
not reflect an error of measurement, Bricklin & Halbert, ink press-b. However, for perceived procedural fairness,
we insist that both caretakers bring the to-be-tested child to the session.) In this case, both parents brought the child
to the initial session; on the other three occasions the mother brought the
child in for testing. The PORTs were
given over a four month period. While
the POC did not change (the father was the POC in each instance), every single
time the child drew her mother, and this amounted to several dozen instances,
there was some Asymmetric part on the
drawing of the mother, usually the eyes.
There were absolutely no asymmetries in any of the other persons
portrayed, including her many older siblings and her father. If we take the visual metaphor seriously,
that is, that a drawing in some way is a visual analog of some emotional state
having to do with secure and safe distances, (explained later), the child is
saying “I cannot integrate something I know about my mother to be true (in this
case, our prior good relationship), with what I now see to be happening.”
15.
This
is scored when the mouth or eyes are omitted.
Our hypothesis: this occurs when the child, usually blatantly, has been
ordered either not to “see something” about a parent or where the child cannot
say what he or she wants to say with comfort, (Mouth/eyes omitted).
16.
This
sign is called “Floaters.” The child draws his or her
self-representation on a different plane (higher) than where the caretaker is
represented. It suggests “I no longer
can occupy the same space as the access-code caretaker.” It occurs on Tasks II, IV or V. The child seems to float above everybody
else in the drawing. The clinical
meaning: “My parents are too preoccupied to be there for me. I must be strong and rise above the
situation.” (As mentioned in the
preamble to this section, those who have no faith in drawings will reject this
reasoning, saying the child does not have the cognitive skills necessary to harbor
a phrase such as: “I must rise above the situation…” in reaction to the PORT
stimulus. We will offer clinical,
empirical and theoretical data to show that even though the child does not have the words, he or she, from
somewhere between 2 ½ years to 3 years of age, does have the necessary genetic structure to formulate and express
such concepts.)
17.
This
sign is called “In front of.” The child draws him- or herself in front of
a represented caretaker. The clinical
meaning is similar to the above. We
find this in mature-for-their-age children who have learned to stay out of
parental conflicts. They are “junior
league diplomats” (Bricklin & Elliot, 2000, p. 506). They need to parent the parents, because the
parents have “disappeared” into their battles.
They put themselves in front of the parents because they become more
leaders than followers. They are
usually the ones who propose peaceful solutions to family problems. We also frequently find this sign in the PORTs
of healthy children who have psychotic or borderline parents. The meaning of the sign would be the same as
for those children whose parents have psychologically disappeared for other
reasons, that is, the child must “lead” the impaired.
18.
Places barriers occurs when the child draws
any kind of line or object that physically separates him or her from a
portrayed caretaker. It does not matter
what the barrier is called. In
substantiated sex abuse cases, we frequently find instances where a child will
draw his or her hair so that it goes from the head right down to the ground
while the abusing caretaker stands to the side. The child will label this “hair,” but psychologically it is a
barrier. An example: the father was
basically a good father who did many fine things with the child, (thirteen
years of age) when he, the father, was alone with the child. But this father hated the mother. The child was terrified of the father’s
hatred of the mother. In virtually every
family drawing that the child rendered, he managed always to place something
between himself and the portrayed father.
We have seen this in countless cases where there is some fear factor
between the child and the portrayed caretaker.
Interestingly, when observing this boy with his father, the facial
expression he most frequently manifested was one described by Ekman as a
fear-smile, a blend of both emotions (1985, pp. 151-152). The conflict revealed by this sign can range
from serious to mild, so it cannot differentiate serious situations from those
less serious. It does not, in our data,
differentiate sexual abuse cases from a case like the one described.
19.
This
is scored when the dog on Task VII is either “lost” or “cannot find his
home.” The child is confused about what
he or she can consider “home,” (Lost VII).
20.
The
child-figure is drawn much bigger than the access-code figure. The meaning is similar to the meaning of
PORT signs 16 and 17, (Bigger/parent).
21.
The
child embellishes the stick figure on Task II or III by drawing hair on the
figures, putting eyes on the figures, or adding clothes to the figure. We believed this sign would be typical in
high conflict cases where a parent who was once available to a child is no
longer so. The embellishment is the
child’s attempt to say this parent is no longer what he or she used to be and
is trying to “recapture” the parent once enjoyed, (Embellishes).
22.
This
is scored when any figure is drawn with a moderate slant, about fifteen
degrees. Prior research showed that a
forty-five degree slant almost always occurs under negative circumstances, (Slant).
23.
“Evidence
of alienation,” (Alienation) occurs when a child places him- or herself closer to
Parent A on Tasks I and II but represents a tie on Task III. Task I has the child draw each parent. Task II has the child in the situation of
being alone with each of the parents.
Task III represents the child with both parents at the same time. The hypothesis was predicted to occur when a
child indeed wants to be with Parent B but only when Parent A is there to
provide protection or when the child is fearful of allowing Parent B to see any
kind of obvious affection manifested toward Parent A. (If proven, this sign, by itself cannot differentiate these two
situations.)
Results
Table 2 presents the
probability values for the 23 PORT signs under investigation in each of the
four groups.
(Insert Table 2 about here.)
Since these data result from
the enumeration of occurrences (which yields a non-continuous ordinal scale),
the appropriate statistic to test the null hypothesis would be a chi
square. But because of the presence of
cells with a frequency of zero or one, the Fisher’s Exact Test, based on the
hypergeometric series, yields more accurate probabilities. In the Discussion section, more information
will be presented that the PORT signs are best conceptualized as discrete,
negative “quality of life” signs that reflect highly disparate clinical
situations.
Seventeen of the 23 signs
achieved a p of .05 or less that
their differential occurrences among the groups could be random. Inspection also suggests there is little
difference in the occurrence of the signs among the children in Groups I and
II. Effect size estimates are given in
Table 3. Eighteen of the 23 effect size
values are greater than .30, seven are larger than 0.50, and four exceed
0.75. Taken as a whole, or even
evaluated individually, the results suggest that a random process would not
yield these figures.
Discussion of Results
Whether there be one or many
of the signs, there is an empirical basis to launch an expanded
evaluation. Red-flags, though not
dispositive, are helpful. Think of an
elevated body temperature; it is far from conclusive, but is almost always a
sign to launch an expanded medical evaluation.
One could also argue that one of more signs suggest a need for
psychotherapy among the family members.
(WARNING: traditional psychotherapy with high conflict caretakers rarely
helps. More frequently it makes things
worse. See Bricklin & Elliot, 2000,
on the techniques needed in high conflict cases.)
Clinical information as well
as the occurrences listed in Table 2, suggest that these signs are best seen as
discrete, negative quality-of-life signs, which while all negative, are
tremendously different in clinical implications. Because of these disparities, they are not meaningfully additive,
even though the cases in Groups III and IV produced more of them than those in
Groups I and II. For example, the signs
indicating depression and self-directed rage (e.g., signs 3, 6 and 9) are not
only much more serious than those indicating, for example, a child’s disappointment
over a parent’s post-divorce behavior toward the other parent (signs 11 and
19), but inherently limit the number of
negative signs a child is likely to produce. Depression greatly curtails interest in one’s interpersonal
environment, the very thing a willingness to respond to the PORT tasks
requires. Many of the most seriously
disturbed children in Group IV produced only one negative sign, further
evidence that the signs are not meaningfully additive.
Another issue involves what
the PORT measures. Some PORT seminar
attendees say: “This test only measures a child’s perceptions. What if a child perceives a competent parent
as incompetent?” But note that
validation procedures used independent
expert assessments of the quality of the interactions between child and
caretaker. Since validity data run in
the 90 percent range, one can conclude that the PORT’s manifestations extend to
far more than a child’s perceptions. Further, a child’s “perception” played no
role in the formation of the four experimental groups. Hence it makes no sense to criticize PORT
(or BPS) data because they represent “only” a child’s perceptions. Such a criticism denotes a misunderstanding
of what the concept “validity” actually means in science. The critical question is: “Regardless of
what a measurement tool happens to be measuring, what can its measurements
predict?” The answer to this question
is to be found in the details of the validity information.
Translating PORT Data Into Accurate and Relevant Clinical Hypotheses
A conclusion from any single
data-source should be considered a hypothesis to be further explored via
independent, convergent lines of evidence.
I am not aware of any drawing manifestations that point to only one
possible conclusion, and there are none that are either necessary and/or
sufficient to establish any particular hypothesis.
In weighing the value of any
test in use, if we are to avoid the kind of all-or-none review articles we have
recently witnessed regarding the Rorschach
test and the replies to them (Exner, 2001, pp. 386-388; 2002, pp. 391-404;
Ganellan, 2001; Garb, Wood, Lilienfeld, & Nezworski, 2002, pp. 455-457;
Meyer, 2001, pp. 389-396; Weiner, Spielberger, & Abeles, 2002, pp. 7-12;
Wood, Nezwarski, Garb, & Lilienfeld, 2001, pp. 350-373) and those that
involve basic disagreements about what the word “evidence” means in the phrase
“evidence-based” (formerly, “empirically-validated”) practice (Anthony, Rogers
& Farkas, 2003; Gonzales, Ringeisen & Chambers, 2002) researchers must
provide more highly explicated lines of reasoning that link evidence to
conclusions than psychometric indices provide.
It must include a detailed description of one’s predictor and criterion
concepts, especially the empirical equivalents of the concepts. These are the totally value-driven choices of what sensory experiences exemplify
a concept (Bricklin & Bricklin, 1999; Bricklin & Halbert, in press-a,
in press-b). One must consider whether
the measurement scales used by a test are adequate for their (predictive)
purposes (measurement theory
issues). In our case, this involves
specifying when ordinal data are sufficient for a given purpose and those
instances where interval data are needed.
One must consider whether an appropriate reference standard (group,
single-participant, criterion) has been employed, especially when dealing with
family systems. The value of
measurement data to a decision-maker should be considered. This involves how the decision-maker intends
to use new information, what is already believed about the decision area, the
strength of these beliefs, what other information is available, the probability
that choices will be made with and without the new information, the
time-urgency of the needed decision, and the cost (risk level) of making less
than an optimum choice (Bricklin & Halbert, in press-a). While psychometric data are needed for such
an assessment, they, by themselves, are vastly insufficient to establish such
value. Even tools that have low (but
known) accuracy rates may still have considerable value in certain
situations. When critics of a test have
a dispute, they may all be right, since they could be making different
assumptions about the above-listed areas.
In the sections to follow,
four areas that impact the effective use of drawing data will be described.
The Need For Precise
Access-Codes
Drawings are motor-expressed
associations of subjective
interpretations of verbal instructions.
The less the instructions trigger associations to a specific entity, the
more difficult it becomes to know what they might predict. We have found, for example, huge differences
in how children respond to the task of drawing a specific parent as opposed to
a request to draw a “person.” One
attendee at a conference sneeringly remarked that he could not understand where
drawing research was going. He said:
“The next thing you know we’re going to be asking people to draw their Aunt
Tilly.” Quite so. If you want someone’s associations to Aunt
Tilly that is precisely who you would ask them to draw. You will not get associations to Aunt Tilly
if you ask someone to draw a tree, unless Aunt Tilly happens to look (and
perhaps act) like a tree. It is not
impossible to identify predictor and criterion variables in drawings of houses
and trees, but the less the certainty
about what such stimuli access mentally, the more difficult it becomes to
formulate highly specific validity
criteria.
In our experience whatever
else drawings can predict, they do best at portraying motor-driven associations
to a specific stimulus. The more
vaguely known the stimulus is, the harder it is to determine what the testee’s
motor-driven associations are in response to.
“Aunt Tilly” is more specific than a “person,” “Draw your house” is more
specific than “Draw a house,” and
“Draw your Mother” is more specific than “Draw a female.”
What Can Drawing Data
Accurately Predict?
We believe drawings can be
useful, but within a narrow range of endeavors. Our experience (more than 40 years, often with much collateral
and follow-up information) suggests drawings do best at predicting basic, often
unconscious, quickly occurring motor dispositions, for example, to move toward,
away from, or against a precisely-known access-code. Empirical information on the observational protocols that suggest
this is the case can be found in Bricklin & Elliot (2002a; 2002b) and in
Bricklin & Halbert (in press-a, in press-b). It is not surprising that the most “genuine” things about a
person should be manifested mainly in non-verbal media (Ekman, 1985; Ekman
& O’Sullivan, 1991). Further, the
most sincere “truths” about an individual do not necessarily last very long
even in their non-verbal expressions.
Some spontaneous facial expressions last less than one second and
require special equipment to observe (Bricklin & Elliot, 1998).
A critical issue in using
drawing data to make accurate assertions is the role of bias. We encounter at our training seminars
widespread misunderstanding of the concept of bias, for example, that one needs
to “adjust” for poor visual-motor skills or “drawing ability” when using
drawing data. The need for “adjustment”
does not follow automatically from the operation of some variable, regardless
of whether it co-creates the measurement response. One needs to correct for bias only when a variable creates bias in regard to a particular predictive usage. (Would you like to go to a surgeon who made
it through medical school because some professor said, “Let’s raise this kid’s
surgical-success scores—we should make an adjustment for his miserable
perceptual-motor skills.”)
Empirical data from the PORT
strongly suggest that few of the variables thought to create bias in using
drawings to make defensible assertions actually do so. Validity figures, largely in the 90 percent
range, have been obtained in 1,508 cases—cases which represent a hugely
diversified group in age (3 ½ years to 16 years, with some data from 2 ½
year-olds) intelligence, age-appropriate (and non-appropriate) school grade
placements, visual-motor skills, presence and absence of learning disabilities
and/or ADHD diagnoses, socioeconomic levels and drawing ability (Bricklin &
Elliot 2002a, 2002b; Bricklin & Halbert, in press-b).
What about “drawing
ability”? First, it is clear from the
thousands of PORTs reviewed, that some children render more “artistic” drawings
than others. Our premise is that one
can extract many useful predictive indices from drawings unrelated to artistic
abilities. A much more basic force than
“art ability” drives drawings. At the
frontiers of science is the awareness that the universe (and whatever one can
say scientifically about anything in it) must arise from a paradigm in which
the description of any entity within the system has to be made in reference to
other things that are part of this system.
Consequently “… (I)f something has a position, that position can only be
defined with respect to… other things in the universe” (Smolin, 2001, p.
18). If something is in motion, one can
only become aware of and describe it in terms of its unfolding relationships
with other entities. Space is the relationship among things in the
real world. “Time” has no absolute meaning; it literally is the change of some entity in relation to another. These same concepts hold in terms of
up-to-date attempts to reconcile Einstein’s ideas with those from quantum
mechanics. One of the most advanced
theories, called “loop quantum gravity,” is seem as a “structure of relations…”
(Smolin, 2001, p. 138; Peat, 2002, pp. 15-17).
Indeed mathematics is the “science of patterns” (Devlin, 2000, p.
7). Cutting-edge thinkers believe,
along with Smolin, that the “… world is nothing but an evolving network of
relationships” (p. 20). Nobel prize
winner Daniel Kaneman understands human perception this way (2003, p. 703).
All of this—and common
sense—suggest that one of the most basic things an organism is pre-wired to know is how it relates to other discrete
entities. These relationships not
only underly most of what psychologists are interested in about people, but
determine what humans come to experience as space and time. A basic survival skill an organism must have
is the ability to rapidly discern how it relates to other entities, human and
otherwise, and with this the ability to know when to move toward, away from or
against them. The rapid approximation
of safe and unsafe distances would seem to be a cosmic feature of the universe
and a necessary tool for survival (Cozolino, 2002, p. 235). We believe humans make these calculations
constantly, and that drawings provide an ideal medium in which to express them,
since their mental representations depend primarily on visual/spatial and
spatial/kinesthetic information.
The next issue is to
consider whether children have the means to complex relationships such as “I
must rise above this painful situation.”
We can look at what linguists call the “deep structure” or the pre-wired
network that allows humans, starting at a very early age, to comprehend the
world (Chomsky, 1957; 1968). Children
apparently have the ability to comprehend important parts of the world long
before they have the words to express them.
Deacon claims children have the necessary mental structure by 18 months
(though not necessarily the words), to comprehend and motorically express
complex relationships among patterns (Deacon, 1997, pp. 6, 24, 26, 37,
207). This same point is made by Calvin
and Bickerton (2001). They, however,
believe the necessary structure is in place by 36 months rather than 18 months
(p. 163).
Since our overall argument
is that spontaneous motor expressions can represent meaningful communications
about relationships among discrete entities even from very young children who
lack the words to express these relationships, we consider what the
evolutionary purpose of the deep structure is thought to represent. Current thinking is that the evolutionary
purpose was not to provide for an
increased ability for humans to speak to one another, but rather for humans to more adequately represent their worlds
and the relationships in them
(Calvin & Bickerton, 2001).
This is a key point, as it puts the spotlight on the development of
neuropsychological processes that lead to syntactic structures and words as
more serving the survival mechanism of an adequate representation of what is
“out there” and how one can relate to what is “out there,” than just the
ability to speak.
Even if we agree that young
humans can process and represent patterns of relations in the real world long
before they can speak about them, we might ask where drawings fit into these
processes. And where is further
evidence that differences in drawing ability need not necessarily require
“adjustment”?
Three pieces of evidence
will be offered. One posits that even
fairly impaired children are capable of executing relatively precise sequences
of motor behaviors at ability levels beyond their measured cognitive
skills. Next, we will offer data to
suggest that many “good” drawings that appear to be rendered spontaneously are
in fact not. Professional artists who
seem so effortlessly to render “good” spontaneous drawings are actually doing
something else. Finally, we will offer
evidence that the ability and even the very urge to draw were created by
evolutionary forces aimed at helping humans relate safely to their caretakers.
Caretakers of mentally
retarded children have noted that these children can successfully execute
rather complex motor sequences at efficiency levels far beyond their general
intellectual capacities (Calvin & Bickerton, 2001, p. 37). Hence it would seem that the ability levels
required to express relationships among entities motorically are less than
those needed to talk about these relationships.
Next, consider the fact that
some people can not only draw more artistic creations than others, but further,
can do so in ways that appear so easy and spontaneous that the illusion is created that drawing ability must be
controlled for if we are to use them to generate empirically supported clinical
hypotheses. Deacon’s data suggest that
a “good artist,” in addition to any
genetic advantage possessed, can bring a huge, pre-programmed, already-integrated series of motor-expressable sequences to a
drawing task that can be executed quickly and only seemingly as though they follow from innate sources (Deacon, 1997,
p. 237). Motor sequences “… can be ‘off
loaded’ to other motor systems that allow them to be (executed) … as an
unanalyzed modular program” (Deacon, 1997, p. 237). This means that highly skilled learned behaviors can emerge as rapidly and seemingly as easily
performed as innate behaviors. Many
cognitively thought-out pre-wired pieces can be embedded in what otherwise are
viewed as “spontaneous” sequences.
“Drawing ability,” as the term is commonly used, refers to the degree to
which a drawing appears to be reasonably “artistic.” Since the predictor variables are called “drawings,” the ability
to “draw” (respond motorically) is confused with the ability to draw
artistically.
Our main empirical argument
against this assumption is that the validity of the PORT signs are unaffected by the many variables that make some
drawings look better than others.
Our theoretical argument involves the fact that even very young children
can mentally process (“understand”) psychologically important interpersonal
relationships, in particular, the degree to which they are safe, in ways that
are beyond their ability to express these understandings either in words or
“artistic” drawings. We conclude that
“good” drawing ability is not needed for what the PORT seeks to explicate. There is the further interesting
point—though not crucial to our empirical argument—that the artistically
superior spontaneous drawings rendered by some persons are not really being
driven by occurring in-the-moment (spontaneous) psychological forces.
The final issue concerning
what drawings can predict centers on a theory by Dissanayake (2002). She believes the evolutionary principle
behind artistic impulses is psychological in nature. The psychology/art area is replete with theories that relate
psychological functions to artistic themes.
Art texts view early cave (and other primitive) drawings as representing
magical ways of “controlling” the world or as having magical/historical
intentions (Egyptian art). Other
theories are even more specifically psychological. Robert Waelder (1965) sees drawings as human attempts to resolve
tension (p. 6), satisfy frustrated wishes (p. 24) and as a general ego
“problem-solver” (p. 44). The esteemed historian of art, Heinrich Wolfflin,
(1931) covered these themes by addressing surface proportions (p. 25), and the
relationships of parts to wholes (pp. 19-149).
For our purposes, this theme is more directly covered in the work of
Dissanayake. Her belief is that
artistic impulses represent the child’s need to develop a safe and effective
accommodation with his or her caretakers.
The theme is also reflected in the research on evaluative responding,
that is, responses that are immediate, consciously unintentional as well as
implicit, and automatically wired to motor predispositions to move “toward or
away from” (Duckworth, Bargh, Garcia & Chaiken, 2002, pp. 513-519).
One final point can be made
about what drawings can predict. It has
been our experience, as well as that of Zygmunt A. Piotrowski (see Piotrowski
& Biele, 1986) that regardless of what one is asked to draw (e.g., a tree,
your uncle, a building, your spouse) one always (primarily) draws oneself as
one relates to the access-code. If a
person is asked to “draw your uncle” and the respondent draws an “angry” uncle,
it may be that this uncle is indeed perceived as angry (what Piotrowski calls a
“secondary meaning”). But what it means
for sure is that the respondent is angry at his or her uncle, that is, that the
access-code elicits associations of anger in the respondent. This anger may be in response to the uncle’s
anger—but this may not be the case. It
may be something else about the uncle that is mobilizing the anger. What can be concluded with a much higher
degree of certainty is that it is the repsondent who is angry at the uncle,
while it is less clear as to what it is about the uncle that is eliciting the
anger.
It is perhaps our bilateral
symmetry, our need to calculate safe and unsafe distances to all things in our
environments and our continuing relationship to gravity (see the works of Moshe
Feldenkrais) that account for the fact that whatever we draw, we are in some
ways drawing ourselves. Many art
historians seemed puzzled by how much the Mona Lisa looks like her creator
(DaVinci), but this may be hard-wired into the drawing process itself and not
an accident or joke.
Where Can One Find The Kind
Of Data Needed To Validate What Drawings Can Predict?
Many of the most critical
things psychologists have to predict about people are known only to their
therapists or family therapists—professionals who worked with them over long
time spans and were able to gather data from multiple and independent sources
(Miller, 1998; Piotrowski & Biele, 1986).
This is also true of custody evaluators, who spend several months gathering
data and have multiple and independent information from tests, interviews,
collateral informants and especially real-life observations. Examples of such (case-specific) criterion
are given in Bricklin & Halbert, (in press-b). When such data are lacking, highly operationalized empirical
observation protocols are needed.
Systems Complexities in
Interpersonal Predictions
Mental health professionals
often think of a system as an interactional model in which stable traits of
person A interact with stable traits of person B. One sees this in the way they conceptualize and write about their
custody (and other psychological) evaluations.
There are sections called “Mister Jones,” “Mrs. Jones,” child “Mary
Jones,” child “Sam Jones,” as though one can assess each element in a system as
a separate entity and then somehow add up the parts. In systems-based decisions,
the elements of the system cannot be evaluated apart from their interactions
within the system. A system is
composed of two or more elements, in which the following conditions also
apply. Each element has an effect on
the whole system. The elements (and
their effects) are not only interdependent but however subgroups are formed,
none can have an independent effect on the system as a whole. One cannot influence a system of which one
is a part, and then not oneself be impacted by this influence (Ackoff, 1999,
pp. 15-17). According to Ackoff, people
used to mechanistic models of science are often confused by systems
thinking. The former approaches
understanding and/or prediction via a deconstruction process; elements are
analyzed one by one, after which their interactions with other elements are
analyzed. With systems, the elements
can only be analyzed as they operate within the system. In the field of psychology, predictions
often need to be system-specific. When
this is the case, predictor-models must be able to discern and specify the
interpersonal systems in which a prediction is likely to be true. While there are predictive models that attempt
to yield assertions that are not system-specific (principles of symmetry or invariance, Weinberg, 1994, pp. 136-137), within psychology, these
predictions are usually vague. They are
hard to validate by means of specifying exact events as they will occur in the
real world.
We will confine our
discussion here to the effects systems have on the attempt to validate the
relationship between the degree-of-closeness between a child and caretaker as
observed on a drawing, and the degree-of-closeness likely to be observed in
some real-life context. Child custody
situations furnish an ideal medium to reveal the importance of systems
complexity, since a disputed post-divorce world is a nightmare of suddenly
shifting allegiances, often within a framework where a “safe choice” for a
child involves only two possibilities.
To make even semi-accurate predictions in such a chaotic world requires
a sharpened awareness of the system-specific nature of prognosticated
behaviors. Let us offer the following
example.
Research, already cited, indicate that each PORT task represents the child’s reactions to a different family system. Task V, for example, demonstrates a very robust relationship between the parent-of-choice on that item, and the parent seen by independent experts as the caretaker who most supports family unity. The following case illustrates our concerns. The father was poorly attuned to the day-to-day parenting of his six year old child. He loved him, but took little interest in his daily life. After the divorce, he quickly remarried. Father, howe