NYU Press Form and Content in Children's Human Figure Drawings: Development, Sex Differences, and Body Experience

"Mortensen...uses drawings of the human figure as a means to assess the psychological and intellectual development of children...relating the different aspects of figure drawing to different theoretical frames of reference, which include developmental psychology as well as the Kleinian theory of psychosexual development." British Journal of Psychiatry This work details sex differences in children's drawings and shows how they display a coherent and meaningful pattern, indicative of a fundamental and basic psychosexual identity and not merely of socialization and education. Mortenson also reveals how human figure drawings reflect the drawer's visual impression of others, and the subjective experience of being human.