Children in Conflictual Separations: Representations of Self and Family through the Blacky Pictures’ Test

This exploratory study aimed to evaluate the effects of conflictual separation and divorce on children’s representations of self and of family relationships in child custody evaluations. Forty-seven school-aged children, assessed in the course of civil separation procedures characterized by high levels of marital conflict (high conflict group), and a control group (low conflict group,  n=47) matched for sex, age, and social level were asked to complete the Blacky Pictures Test. The protocols were analyzed by experts using the double-blind method on the base of an ad hoc grid. Results showed that children involved in high conflictual separations provided a more unstable self-representation and more negative representation of parents, higher emotional dysregulation (anger, guilt, persecutory distress), and inability to stay alone and to tolerate the ambivalence than the low conflict group.