Two Drawing Tasks to Illuminate Self-Agency Representations of Children With Disruptive Behavior Problems

This article discusses the clinical benefit of comparing and integrating responses to 2 drawing tasks based on a small study that explored self-agency representations in children with disruptive behavior problems. Qualitative analysis of the children’s free drawing and a Person Picking an Apple from a Tree (PPAT) task, as well as comparison of their verbal stories about both drawings, revealed differences in self-agency representation that could enrich clinical thinking. Because the study’s free drawings contained figures with self-agency to a greater degree than was found in the PPAT, along with more frequent self-references in the corresponding verbal narratives, future research with larger samples and greater rigor is recommended to further explore these and other findings.