120 • Introduction to Art Therapy
Bernard I. Levy is teaching an art therapy class and then a group of psychiatry residents at
Walter Reed about projective techniques.
Responding to Visual Stimuli
In some approaches, the individual is asked to give meaning to a series of stimuli. They may
be abstract, like the famous inkblots introduced by psychoanalyst Hermann Rorschach in
1921 (cf. Exner, 2002) or the molded shapes of Twitchell-Allen’s (1958) Three-Dimensional
Apperception Test. They may also be representational, like the drawings of people in
Murray’s Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), or of animals in Bellak’s version for children,
the Children’s Apperception Test (CAT). Some tools are specific to the problem, like the
Storytelling Card Game (R. Gardner, 1988).
Preference Tests
In these, the person chooses from among visual stimuli. Some involve color, as in
the Luscher Color Test (Luscher, 1969). Others involve design, like the Welsh Figure
Preference Test (Welsh, 1959), which asked people to select preferred line drawings. This
test included the Barron-Welsh Art Scale developed with Frank Barron, a psychologist
specializing in creativity who later advised art therapist Janie Rhyne on her doctoral dis-
sertation. Rhyne (1995) asked individuals not to respond to, but to create line drawings
representing a series of affective states.
Art therapist Joan Kellogg’s (Figure 6.1) studies of recurring patterns in mandala draw-
ings were the basis for her selection procedure, the MARI Card Test, which involves both
color and design (Kellogg, 1980). For her doctoral research, art therapist Doris Arrington
(Figure 6.2) (2005) created a Visual Preference Test, in which participants select and rank
line drawings. Like the images seen in inkblots or stories told about drawings, such choices
are assumed to reflect fairly stable aspects of personality. On the DVD (6.2), art therapist
Carol Cox, one of Kellogg’s colleagues, administers a MARI test, which includes both the
creation of a mandala and an active response to a set of carefully designed cards.
Figure 6.1 Joan Kellogg, MARI Card Test.