2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
Sexually traumatized children need to replay what happened to them, often in symbolic or playful form, in order to process the trauma. In their representations, the content of what happened is not always clearly visible, since they adopt the denial strategies of adults and the environment.
Drawing is an act of self-discovery. It allows the child to deal with traumatic events.
What are the details in a child's drawings that may indicate a sexual abuse experience?
The child draws not according to age
Chaos, unclear content, lack of structure, no differentiation, loss of the whole
The drawing of a 7-year-old girl on the theme "Family" may indicate early traumatization.
Obsessive choice of topic for a long time. Regardless of the theme, the child draws the same plot for weeks and months. This suggests that there is a traumatic experience here. Sexuality is often a persistent topic
A four-year-old girl is painting a grandparents house with many windows. There are candles on all the windows. She could only draw this plot for a long time, because her injury was associated with this house
Sexualized images. Drawing of a 6 year old boy
- If a child is forbidden to draw on a topic that he obsessively follows, he becomes confused and begins to draw things that cannot be identified.
- Long things: banana, train, snake, street
At first glance, the usual childish drawing of a train. It is worth noting that the train driver is naked, and you can see the image of a penis between his legs.
Girl 3, 9 years old comments on the drawing: This is me (top image), and this is the tail, it belongs to a man (bottom image). The bottom drawing was located on the back of the sheet and depicts the girl's family. All figures are arranged horizontally
The genitals are mainly phalluses of exaggerated size. The penis with the face, mouth, tongue of the rapist
The rapist can be portrayed as a monster, robber, ghost, dangerous or poisonous animal
Comments of a boy 3, 7 years old to the picture: "These are poisonous spiders, they need to be driven away." The child traces the image. The rapist father becomes a poisonous spider, a robber, a ghost, in order to be able to separate him from another, good dad.
Multiple images of people with genitals
All the drawings of the five-year-old boy have penises.
A 7-year-old boy draws on the theme "My Family". The father is in the center without a face. All figures have genitals drawn.
If a child is forbidden to draw a penis, he replaces it with a knife, sword, pistol, arrow (penis as a weapon)
A five-year-old child, who had an obsessive theme - genitals, was forbidden to draw them. He was completely confused. He started drawing and could not finish it. On the fifth attempt, he found a way out and drew a sword in place of the penis. Since then, he has painted men with weapons.
- The child draws people, especially himself, without hands (helplessness), without a mouth (inability to talk about a secret)
- There is a clear tendency to paint over, shade, glue, cut off parts of the drawing, part of the body, face
The whole story is read in this picture, supported by the comments of a boy 4, 3 years old. The child talks all the time about a spider with glue. I am at home, sleeping, and the secret is up there (blue image under the roof). To the question: "What is this?" - about the shaded area of the genitals, the boy replies: "Nothing … I do not want to talk about it, it must go away." Regarding the image on the left: "This is ice cream, you also need to throw it away."
The genital area is shaded in black or red
- Images that no one should see are drawn on the back of the paper or barely visible with very little pressure
- Increased interest in the topic of death
"Mom is a camel, dad is riding her. Downstairs I lie dead, because the spider was poisonous. Now I am in heaven."
On the back of the page "How I Died". The circles represent poison.
The child paints all the time in dark or black colors
Closed spaces, feeling locked up, no way out
"I want to get out, but I can't."
- Sometimes in a series of works there is not a single self-portrait, or it is very small somewhere in the corner, without a face, mouth, hands. There is often a big difference in the portrayal of yourself and other people.
- No floor, figures float in the air
- In family portraits, the rapist is separated from the rest by a line, highlighted in color, or his image is missing
"Here I sleep, here my sister and mother sleep." The teacher asks: "Where does dad sleep?" The girl does not answer, she dissociates. After several persistent suggestions from the teacher, she paints her father in a different color. Then he paints the mouth of himself, sister and mother in the same color.
- The multiple arrangement of the figures of people horizontally, as in the previous drawings, the child's special interest in the topic of bed, sleep also seems to be a reason to think
- Imagining yourself as a dangerous creature or volcano bursting with anger
"Here I sleep, here my sister and mother sleep." The teacher asks: "Where does dad sleep?" The girl does not answer, she dissociates. After several persistent suggestions from the teacher, she paints her father in a different color. Then he paints the mouth of himself, sister and mother in the same color.
The responsibility of the child therapist is enormous. The fate of not only a particular child, but also the whole family depends on his professionalism. On the one hand, it is necessary to promptly help the child and isolate him from the rapist; on the other hand, there is a danger of erroneous conclusions. A suspicion of sexual abuse can arise on the basis of a series of drawings of a child and his comments, but confidence in the fact of sexual abuse must be based on many factors: family history, observation of the child's behavior, numerous drawings in which signs are constantly present indicating trauma of this nature. It is very important for the child to describe what is depicted, if this is possible. Close observation of feelings and behavioral reactions when commenting on drawings provides a lot of material.
Quite harmless children's drawings can be misinterpreted. For example, this drawing of a girl depicts a thunderstorm that captured her imagination. The red round object is a ball that was flying in the wind. For the rest of the manifestations, the child was normal.
No conclusions can be drawn from one or more drawings, and the hypothesis that arises as a result of the interpretation of the images needs careful and patient verification.
Children's drawings for publication and comments on them are taken from books indicated in literary sources. My translation from German.
Literary sources:
Reichelt, Stefan (1994): Kindertherapie nach sexueller Misshandlung. Malen als Heilmethode. Zürich: Kreuz.
Sachsse, Ulrich (2004): Traumazentrierte Psychotherapie. Theorie, Klinik und Praxis. Stuttgart: Schattauer GmbH.
Steinhage, Rosemarie (1992): Sexuelle Gewalt. Kinderzeichnungen als Signal. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowolt Taschenbuch.
Author: Shmeleva Svetlana Evgenievna
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