Customer Reviews

Kinetic House-Tree-Person Drawings: K-H-T-P: An Interpretative Manual

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If you want to learn more about the use of drawings in assessing clients, "Kinetic-House-Tree-Person" is a great book to read. I was fortunate to have studied with Mr. Burns and his work is outstanding in the field of interpretations of kinetic/house/tree/person drawings. Through this book, I have learned how to interpret the drawings of my clients. The kinetic/house/tree/person drawing is an important diagnostic tool in working with children and adults. Mr. Burns's extensive use of diagnostic drawings with his clients of all ages is thoroughly documented throughout his books. Not only do I highly recommend this book, but his others as well. While many of them are out of print, you won't be disappointed if you are fortunate enough to find one. For sure, you want to add "Kinetic-House-Tree-Person" to your collection of clinical resources.

For those who want easy answers to deciphering drawings, then this book is a *must read.* But reader beware-- this research is not particularly sound and the original text was written in the early 70's, approximately 30 years ago-- and this book was not significantly updated since then. Hello! Our family values and ideas about family have changed since then, but that is not addressed in this volume. An art therapist worth their salt does not use this type of unreliable assessment to work with clients. I apologize for disagreeing with the last reviewer, but I believe this volume is more of a *must avoid* rather than any type of a classic in the field of art therapy.

I started using art projection when I was a psychologist for a child adolescent unit in a state hospital. A good way to engage angry or depressed children without threat is to ask them to draw something, unless they have poor perceptual motor skills. But getting them to draw will tell you something about that right away. It is important to know what to expect in average drawing skills and this book helps with that. It also gives a place to start with children who have difficulty with verbal expression. This is not the Be All- End All text but it is worthy of being a companion to other art evaluation tools. It is for the subjective anecdotal information to supplement the more objective tools.

This is not the original I was trained to use but it works as well or better than Goodall's. I use it twice a year and have found the student responses are more in depth for interpretation than their psychoeducational or psychological reports. You can find more quickly where the "hope" level is and put energy into those who are reachable and refer those who aren't. I have collected hundreds of these samples over the years and find most are right on the mark. Of course, it mustn't be used as a diagnostic tool but it works well as a verifier of info.

This is an easy to read and understand primer of a specific projective test. It provides very good illustrations and explanations of the drawings without giving the idea that one can "simply cookbook" the explanations. It is helpful if the reader has some prior knowledge of projective theory and application.

Book is a good guide for House-Tree-Person Drawings analysis. Pictures are a plus. The book is an old version, but haven't found many updated versions for House-Tree-Person Drawings.

i was hoping for more explainations from this book. You definately need to be a freudian i guess to get more out of hte book. there are plenty of pictures but not enough detail. not a good book if you are just learning to read or interpret drawings

This book is interesting and it is recommended as the first reading of KHTP drawing.

Well presented and an excellent resource for those that utilize this easily administrated and effective assessment.

Kinetic House-Tree-Person Drawings or K-H-T-P by Robert C. Burns of the Seattle Institute of Human Development, is an easy to use and understand interpretative manual for this popular, though still controversial, assessment technique.

Dr. Burn's theory for adding the Kinetic action-to-purpose element to the existing classical model, argues that action in the exercise and symbiosis of the projective components, interplay in creating a dynamic that can yield much more patient information than the standard traditional technique and paradigm.

Dr. Burns demonstrates his point by comparing and contrasting results from several classical model assessments of projective drawings with a kinetic model and interpretation. K-H-T-P is well written and organized providing rich examples of real illustrations for practice and reflection. It is an excellent tool and reference guide for all serious advanced students of psychology and for which assessment will be an important part of their practice.

For the serious student of projective techniques, I would recommend not to focus to much on the illustrations until you have read the concept and assessment techniques provided within and then take a turn at assessment and compare your effort with Dr. Burns final conclusions.