CHILD ABUSE VICTIMS: THE UTILITY AND LIMITATIONS OF THE HUMAN FIGURE DRAWING TEST IN LEGAL MEDICAL CIRCLES

CHILD ABUSE VICTIMS: THE UTILITY AND LIMITATIONS OF THE HUMAN FIGURE DRAWING TEST IN LEGAL MEDICAL CIRCLES Ignazio Grattagliano The Human Figure Drawing Test is a widely used instrument in both clinical and forensic settings. However, when used in the evaluation of minors in civil and penal cases, its methodological “weak points” are exposed. The inappropriate use of this instrument, with regard to its potential explicative capacity, is not a rare occurrence. In fact, when following proper legal medical and forensic psychiatric methodology, one needs to be aware that it is incorrect to make a diagnosis of abuse based solely on the results of administered psychodiagnostic instruments, particularly when employing graphic evaluations, such as The Human Figure Drawing Test, which do not in themselves permit the identification of abuse. This 220 221 Poster abstracts Poster abstracts article highlights the expressive and communicative value that the drawings may possess in child abuse investigations, whether they are of a sexual, physical, or psychological nature, or if they involve neglect. It is well to remember that, especially in the field of legal medicine; one always needs to keep in mind that no automatism exists between the coupling of a single response on the test, and its psychological significance. Test responses in no way constitute any significant juridically usable evidence. Furthermore, the various hypotheses formulated in the psychodynamic and psychometric sections of the test assume their own reliable dynamic-structural and clinical-nosographic classification only when properly integrated from an individual clinical context: A test may only furnish hypotheses. It neither provides certainty nor any detailed diagnoses, especially when related to complex and multi-faceted events such as episodes of presumed abuse.