The study aimed to examine the extent to which the use of drawing prior to
narrative description increases the richness of the narrative given by children
who are exposed to a succession of negative life events. The sample consisted of
study and comparison groups (60 children: 27 boys, 33 girls), ranging in age
from 9 to 14, whose fathers were addicted to drugs. The study group was asked to
first ‘draw your life in the shadow of your father’s
addiction to drugs’, then verbally describes ‘your life
under the shadow of an addicted father’; the comparison group was
asked only the latter. Following evaluation of drawings and narratives by two
judges, analysis of variance between the groups’ narratives revealed
that when children were first asked to draw, their narratives were more detailed
and more revealing of emotions compared to children who were asked only to
verbally describe their lives, whereas expressions of resistance and splitting
were more apparent in the comparison group.