Il disegno della famiglia nei bambini vittime di abuso sessuale: uno studio pilota

Drawing has a long tradition in clinical and developmental psychology as an effective instrument for evaluating children cognitive, affective and emotional features (Thomas & Silk, 1998; Bombi & Pinto, 2000; Ionio & Procaccia, 2003). In particular the Family Drawing (Corman, 1967) is used to analyze internal representation of the child, as family has been considered an “interiorized relational system” (Castellazzi, 2002). What happens when family isn’t an adequate protective environment and doesn’t sustain child psycho-physical development? The aim of this work is to investigate whether sexually abused children depict their family and if their drawings are different from those made by non-abused children. We analyzed family drawings made by 83 children aged 6-10, 20 of whom were sexually abused. Data has shown significant differences in graphical, formal and content characteristics between drawings of sexually abused and non-abused children.