Home is where the “art” is:

Thoughts about the House-Tree-Person (HTP) projective test

A few years ago, a friend of mine, taking advantage of my chronic F.O.M.O, convinced me to come with her to some obscure bar in the south shore for a birthday party (this is back when I had no car — natives of Laval will sympathize with me here). In any case, within minutes Miss social butterfly went off talking with a group of people she knew, leaving me to sip on some watered-down beer and feigning interest in the golf match playing in the background. Finally she came back to me, a huge grin plastered on her face and waving a napkin in front of me.

“Sheba, that guy just told me a bunch of things about my childhood and my personality just by looking at my drawing! Stop looking like a loser and go over and ask him to do yours.” ( I’m paraphrasing here, just imagine a lot more slurring,swear words, and excited arm waving but you get the idea).

Ok, so I was intrigued and from what I could tell, Tiger Woods was probably going to win that tournament anyway, so I pulled out some paper from my purse and walked on over to see what my friend was going on about.

This guy, seeming pretty content with all this attention, was more than happy to predict “who I was” simply by telling me to draw a snake, a house, a tree, the sun, and water. I wish I had kept that paper, or else I could have scanned it but I’ll give you the gist of what I ended up drawing:

STOP: Before going any further try it out for fun: Draw those 5 things and check out these interpretations HERE.

This was mine:

• a snake with sunglasses lounging on a beach chair next to
• a tall leafy tree with a hole in the middle( I assume I meant it as an owl’s nest)
• a pond with a fish swimming inside
• a two story house with a pointed roof, multiple windows
• and a sun with triangular rays at the top left corner.

Did I think what he then said about my drawing was legitimate? No. Were some of the things he was saying accurate? Possibly, but it could have applied to anyone. Did the fact that I drew a hole into my tree really mean that “there was a void inside of me that I was looking to fulfill”? I also like owls a lot too so…

Now, I’m not for one second going to sit here and say that this is the experience that got me fascinated with the field of psychology ( because we all know Dr. Phil is every psych student’s idol).

But I admit, I was sort of impressed.

For years I brushed it off as some sort of party trick, but it wasn’t until a few months ago out of sheer curiosity that I literally googled “ that thing where you draw a house and a tree to know your future” ( by the way, check out hit #7 on that search, kinda funny…). And by refining my search even more, realizing that this might be an actual measure, I finally came across the House-Tree-Person (HTP) projective test developed by John Buck in 1948.

The test that I was “administered” wasn’t exactly like the HTP, and from what I gathered, there are many versions and interpretations of this type of test. (One interpretation suggested the snake represented the view of my sexuality, the other was meant to depict my father. Freud would have had a field day…).

In fact, the HTP has been used in a number of psychological assessments, such as child abuse, personality traits, psychosis and brain damage.

The idea behind this test is that the individual is projecting inner thoughts and feelings into the drawing which can be interpreted based on the characteristics of the elements within the image. And just as it suggests, the subject is asked to draw unsurprisingly, a house, a tree and a person.

The actual test is much more complex than what I played along with at the bar, comprising 60 set questions in which the test administrator must use to prompt the subject in describing what they have drawn. The answers are then interpreted based on the subjects responses.

As the measurements’ description would suggest:

The H-T-P is often administered as the first in a battery of psychodiagnostic tests. It is an ideal way to assess personality in individuals who are culturally different, educationally deprived, developmentally disabled, or non–English speaking.

But like any kind of projective test, the evaluation is subjective, putting into question the reliability of this type of measure. The elements of the drawings are appointed arbitrary symbols meant to represent the facets of the subjects life from their perspective.

In addition, as much as the test claims cultural neutrality, the fact still lies that differences exist between cultures such as objects that might be culturally or geographically specific. For example, the north american depiction of a tree might look similar to that of a maple tree, but in a place where maple trees don’t grow, but instead palm tree do, questions regarding the tree will not necessarily be consistent. Variance in drawings are therefore substantial.

One such study by Palmer et al. (2000) sought to question the reliability of the HTP test by assessing the results of children with and without a history of abuse. The authors concluded that HTP scores were unable to predict group membership of the participants or distinguish between subject groups.

Nonetheless, projective tests such as these will always garner some form of popularity and intrigue because the potential to try and understand ourselves is always enticing.

Worst case, after reading this, you’ve just found an icebreaker at your next party.

I will leave you with this:

So if “the eyes are the window to the soul”, could the HTP test and others like it literally be drawing a window into our mind? Not exactly.