Mothers’ perceptions of their relationships with their children and their responses to joint drawings

ABSTRACT

Although the association between parental relationships with their children and creative output is one of the basic tenets of therapeutic work in dyadic art therapy, this assumption has rarely been examined experimentally. This study was designed to explore associations between mothers’ perceptions of their relationships with their children and their responses to a joint drawing task. Seventy-four dyads composed of mothers and their 6–9-year-olds created joint drawings. The mothers then filled out the Art-Based Intervention Questionnaire (ABI) and the Relations with Father/Mother Questionnaire (RFMQ) to assess responses to their drawing experience and perceptions of their relationship with their child. The findings showed that mothers who had a more positive perception of their relationship with their daughter also had a more positive experience in the joint drawing activity, whereas no such correlations were found for mother–son relationships.

KEYWORDS:

• Drawing response
• dyadic art therapy
• mother–child joint drawing
• quantitative research
• Art-Based Intervention Questionnaire

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dafna Regev, The Graduate School of Creative Art Therapies, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.

Rotem Patishi, The Graduate School of Creative Art Therapies, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.