The Use of Projective Drawings to Assess Alexithymia: The Validity of the Wartegg Test Eka Roivainen and Piritta Ruuska Oulu Deaconess Institute, Oulu, Finland Abstract. Background: The goal of this study was to investigate whether the results of assessments of alexithymia based on a self-report questionnaire, the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS), correlates with those based on drawing content in the Wartegg Drawing Completion Test (WZT). It was hypothesized that high alexithymia scores in theTAS are negatively correlated to the number of human drawings in the WZT. Method: Subjects were 83 patients of the Oulu Deaconess Institute, Oulu, Finland. Results: The TAS mean score for subjects with no human drawings was 56.0 compared to 45.4 for those with one or more human drawings (p < .001). Conclusions: The results can be considered encouraging concerning the overall usefulness and validity of the WZT. It is concluded that efforts to develop a psychometrically valid and reliable method of interpreting the WZT should be continued. Keywords: alexithymia, Wartegg test, assessment, validity Mattlar, Lindholm, Haasiosalo, and Vesala (1991) inves- tigated whether the Wartegg Drawing Completion Test (WZT), a projective drawing test developed by Ehrig Wartegg (1939), may be used to detect alexithymia. On the basis of the definition of alexithymia by Von Rad (1983), Mattlar et al. hypothesized that alexithymic sub- jects would favor conformistic, noncreative solutions in their drawings and prefer to draw inanimate objects, while nonalexithymic subjects would favor human or an- imal drawings. In Mattlar’s study, the interrater agree- ment between assessments of alexithymia based on War- tegg drawings was as high as 0.77 for four independent judges. However, correlations of scores obtained with the WZT with those of scores obtained using other in- struments were not studied. Validity studies involving comparisons between structured personality tests and projective drawings have generally shown low correla- tion (Kahill, 1984). While projective drawing tests con- tinue to enjoy widespread popularity among clinical psy- chologists, some personality assessment researchers (Li- lienfeld et al., 2000) have suggested that the use of projective drawings should be discontinued due to their lack of reliability and validity. In Wartegg’s test, the respondent draws eight draw- ings, deciding freely the topic of each drawing, while in other projective drawing tests the topic of the drawing, such as a tree or a person, is given by the tester. Because of the freedom of choice in the WZT, qualitative aspects of the drawings are less important in the interpretation of Wartegg drawings than in the other tests. Very few valid- ity studies exist for the WZT. The existing interpretation methods devised for the WZT by Wartegg (1939), Crisi (1998), and Gardziella (1985) are based on clinical ex- perience and have not been empirically validated. Roi- vainen (1997) found a weak correlation between extra- version as measured by Cattell PF10 (Factors A and E) and the total number of human drawings in the WZT. Tamminen and Lindeman (2000) failed to find a signifi- cant correlation between Wartegg drawings and a per- sonality profile based on Jackson’s Personality Research Form (1997). The purpose of this study was to investigate whether alexithymia scores based on a psychometrically valid and reliable self-report questionnaire, the Toronto Alex- ithymia Scale (TAS; Bagby et al., 1986), correlate with those obtained based on drawing content in the WZT. Hypothesis We hypothesized that high scores in the TAS would be negatively correlated to the number of human drawings in the WZT. DOI 10.1027/1015-5759.21.3.199 © 2005 Hogrefe & Huber Publishers European Journal of Psychological Assessment 2005; Vol. 21(3):199–201 ${protocol}://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/pdf/10.1027/1015-5759.21.3.199 - Sunday, July 08, 2018 2:11:44 AM - Technische Universität München IP Address:129.187.254.46