Psychosomatic Medicine 17:139-148 (1955)
© 1955 American Psychosomatic Society

Inside-of-the-Body Test

A Preliminary Report

¹ Psychoanalytic Clinic, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, N. Y.
² Psychoanalytic Clinic, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, N. Y.; Dept. of Psychiatry, Roosevelt Hospital, N. Y.

A new test is described in which the individual is instructed, "Draw the inside of the body, including all the organs."

Results reported were based on drawings obtained from group testing 100 Naval Academy candidates, 150 patients from psychiatric, medical, and surgical wards of a naval hospital, and 22 New York City sixth-grade students. All but the sixth-graders were limited as to time.

Generally, drawings were anterior views which represented several anatomical systems, with an average of 6 to 9 labels. The heart was the most popular organ, and the cardiovascular and gastrointestinal systems were the most frequently represented systems.

In the drawings certain body parts were omitted with notable frequency. On the other hand, some systems received prominent emphasis, especially in the depiction of a single anatomical system.

Drawings of children differed somewhat from those of adults. Most of these sixth-graders gave skeletomuscular responses, but all omitted genitals, whereas the adults gave far fewer skeletomuscular responses but represented the reproductive organs with some frequency.

The quality of a drawing afforded some useful indications of personality and psychopathology.

Further study will be made of the possible use of the test in psychiatric screening and in the investigation of psychosomatic problems, especially the possible implications of differences in system emphasis.