They Could Not Talk & So They Drew: Children's Styles of Coping & Thinking

ISBN: 0398065187

Author: Myra F. Levick

Condition: Used

This book describes and illustrates the normal and abnormal development of cognitive skills and defense mechanisms through the graphic work of children aged two to ten. The first chapter gives the reader an overview of the theory of art therapy used by the author to develop criteria for identifying defense mechanisms of the ego in graphic productions. In-depth reviews of the literature follow the literature on the normal development of defenses, emphasizing the work of Sigmund and Anna Freud, and the literature of normal cognitive development, normal artistic development, and the relationship between cognitive, psychosexual and artistic development. Subsequent chapters synthesize the foregoing literature with the author s own incisive observations and research to reveal new perspectives and understandings of art analysis and therapy. Doctor Levick correlates Piagetian and psychoanalytic developmental stages with children s drawings to document chronological, graphic manifestations of the cognitive, psychosexual and artistic domains. She also explores the significance of identifying defense mechanisms in the drawings of emotionally disturbed and/or learning disabled children and adults, especially with respect to the establishment of the individual s developmental level, the use of maladaptive ego mechanisms of defense, and the developmental stage in which psychological trauma occurred. The conclusion summarizes and amplifies the author s work and its use in understanding the relationships of developmental domains and hierarchically identifying defense mechanism. Appendices report the results of reliability and validity studies of this unique approach, and they provide a glossary of Piagetian terminology. This book is designed for, art therapists of course, mental health professionals- child psychologists, counselors and psychotherapists.