Drawing a Tree

Ever since I can remember I have liked to draw. At school, my teacher often assigned me this task to decorate the classroom bulletin boards. Then over the years, I perfected my own style of drawing.

Only once I enrolled in a painting course, and that was at a time when I was pregnant, expecting my second child. For almost 8 months I attended the course and I was able to do some oil paintings of natural landscapes. I always drew rivers or seas, with their sunsets. And above all, I liked to draw trees.

When I'm travelling I like to sit on the seat facing the window. I like to look at the trees in the different places I passed through during the journey. I look at the different shapes of the trees, their roots, trunk, foliage, the colour of the leaves and the colour of the trunk. I still don't know what the psychological reason for this attraction to trees is. I think it may be that I look for a way of perfecting the technique of drawing through observation so that the tree is as realistic as possible.

Drawing is a creative form of expression. It can also be compared to a mirror, through a drawing you unconsciously bare your emotions at a certain moment. The drawing reflects how we feel and on a psychological level, it can give information about some of our personality traits.

Drawing reveals a part of us, in fact, it is a projective technique used by psychologists, pedagogues, and in human resources for the selection of personnel to be hired in a company. I remember on one occasion a friend visited me to ask me to draw her a picture of a house, a tree and a person. She had a written interview sheet for her to answer some personal questions as a requirement for a job she was applying for. It was a sheet with several personal questions and at the end, she was asked to draw a picture of a house, a tree and a person. As she didn't know how to draw, she wanted me to do the drawing because she was worried that she wouldn't be hired because she couldn't draw. I couldn't help her because through that drawing, without her knowing it, they were applying the house-tree-person test and she would be evaluated on emotional aspects, her traumas, stress, anxiety and even her self-esteem.

When we draw only the tree we are applying a projective personality test. With this drawing the psychologist tries to find out unconscious aspects of the person. It can be applied to both children and adults, which is why it is a technique that is widely used at a clinical level in cases of sexual abuse, harassment, rape, physical and psychological mistreatment in children and adolescents. As well as in adults in the workplace in interviews for personnel selection. In children, adolescents and adults, through the drawing of the tree, the specialist obtains relevant information that the patient has not revealed verbally due to fear, fear or omission of information.

The interpretation of the tree test must be done taking into consideration many aspects and information collected through interviews obtained from the person who makes the drawing, and it must be carried out by an expert in projective graphic techniques in the area of psychology. There are many aspects that are considered in the tree test, it is too broad to be detailed in a professional way, I can only point out that all aspects are considered when evaluating the drawing. The tracing of the drawing is analysed, if it has erasures or elements of the drawing have been erased, the location of the tree on the paper where it was drawn, the roots, if they are deep or shallow, the ground, the trunk, if it is thin, thick, if the trunk has holes, the location of the hole in the trunk, the branches and their location, if it has holes, if the tree has fruits, if the fruits are rotten, if they are drawn on the ground, the leaves, the top of the tree and many other details that the specialist has to consider, such as the colours used when colouring the tree.

What I want to express in this content on the subject of drawing a tree is that the drawing is used as a projection test that allows the specialist in the area of psychology to know something more intimate, the unconscious or some traumatic experiences that happened in the life of the person who makes the drawing, are elements of importance for the psychological evaluation that were not expressed verbally in the interviews carried out as a complement to the clinical or human resources case of a company.

If you have ever been asked to draw a picture of a tree, you were unknowingly asked to take the tree test and gave information from your subconscious without even knowing it.

Have you drawn a picture of the tree?
I have, many times, to express my creativity in drawing.

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