Diagnostic Drawing Series (SDD): pilot study to adapt to the Brazilian public

• Grant number: 24/10971-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: June 01, 2025
• End date: May 31, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Psychological Treatment and Prevention
• Principal Investigator: Francisco Lotufo Neto
• Grantee: Erika Rodrigues Colombo
• Host Institution: Instituto de Psicologia (IP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The present research aims to be a pilot study for the adaptation of a diagnostic drawing instrument that has never been seen in Brazil: the Diagnostic Drawing Series (DDS), which was developed in 1982 by two art therapists: Barry M. Cohen and Barbara Lesowitz, and first presented at the American Art Therapy Association annual conference in 1983 - where it received the Association's Research Award for its multicenter collaborative design. This series was the first diagnostic approach in art therapy for adults with standardization aligned with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and widely validated through comparative research in an international research network. Its manual has already been translated into several languages (Dutch, French, German, Spanish and Japanese). To adapt the DDS - which has already been translated into Portuguese and retranslated into English (back-translation) - to the Brazilian public, this research proposes to investigate the extent of the diagnostic possibilities of the drawings: both for the nosography mapping of symptoms (through SDD), as well as a multimethod understanding of the structural functioning of personality through phenomenon-structural analysis. For this, in addition to SDD, will be used a diagnostic approach based on drawings produced in a Free Expression Painting Studio - which the efficiency for the public in question has already been demonstrated in previous doctoral research. The phenomenon-structural analysis of the drawings will allow us to gain a phenomenological understanding of each participant, based on their pictorial expressions and verbalizations, following their evolution over the course of twelve meetings. To map symptoms of anxiety, stress and depression we will use: the Beck Anxiety Inventory, the Perceived Stress Scale, and the Beck Depression Inventory. The diagnostic findings of the scales will be compared to the DDS findings. In this way, the research proposes an approximation between clinical psychopathology (which aims at the nosography identification of symptoms) and phenomenon-structural psychopathology (which seeks to understand personality factors and ways of being). Procedure: the DDS and the three scales will be applied to 10 participants before follow-up in the Free Expression Drawing Studio, which will take place for 12 weeks. In the end, the analysis of the DDS results will be compared to the analysis of the Studios' drawings and the results of the three scales, hoping to find an approximation between the diagnostic mapping of each process (nosography and phenomenon-structural), for a deeper understanding of the participants' mental health. (AU)