The House-Tree-Person Test: What Drawings Can and Cannot Tell Us

What is the house-tree-person test and can a drawing lead to a diagnosis? How it is used, why popular interpretations mislead and what research says.

Your nine-year-old son comes home from school and tells you that at the school counselling service he drew "a house, a tree and a person". Curious, you search online and come across long lists: a house without windows apparently means introversion, a tree with a hollow means a trauma in the past, and a human figure drawn without hands means helplessness. You remember that there was a hollow in your son's tree, and you spend that night uneasy. The house-tree-person test is one of the assessment tools parents are most curious about and that is most often misunderstood. In this article we look at how this drawing exercise is carried out, why popular interpretations are misleading, what research says about the reliability of such drawings, and what you can ask as a parent when a drawing exercise has been done.

What Is the House-Tree-Person Test?

The house-tree-person test is a projective drawing exercise in which a person is asked to draw a house, a tree and a person. The word "projective" rests on the assumption that a person's response to an ambiguous or open task may reflect something of their inner world. After the drawing, the person is often asked questions about what they have drawn: "Who lives in this house?", "How old is this tree?", "How is this person feeling right now?" and so on.

The exercise usually proceeds like this:

• The person is given paper and a pencil, and sometimes coloured pencils.
• The house, tree and person figures are drawn on separate sheets or on the same sheet.
• The person administering it observes the drawing process: Where did the person start, how long did they take to finish, did they use an eraser, where did they hesitate?
• Once the drawing is finished, the drawings are discussed with the person.

This exercise can be used with adolescents and adults as well as with children. You may come across it in schools, in clinics and in some assessment processes.

The most important point here is this: the house-tree-person test should be thought of not as a measurement tool with standard scoring and strong evidence of validity, but more as an exercise that opens a conversation and offers an opportunity for observation. We explain why below, together with the research.

Popular Interpretations: The Windowless House, the Hollow Tree, the Handless Person

On the internet and social media, many "lists of meanings" for house-tree-person drawings circulate. Some of them are:

• If the door of the house is small, the person is closed off from the world.
• If smoke is coming from the chimney, there is tension at home.
• If there is a hollow in the tree, a trauma was experienced in the past.
• If the tree's roots are prominent, the person is attached to their past.
• If the human figure has no hands, the person feels helpless.
• If the figure is drawn in the corner of the page, the person is insecure.
• Dark lines drawn with heavy pressure point to anger.

These lists are appealing because they reduce a complex human inner world to a few simple rules. But for exactly this reason they are misleading. There can be countless reasons why a child draws a hollow in their tree: the tree in the school playground has a hollow, they saw a squirrel living in a hollow in a cartoon, they enjoy drawing hollows, or they simply did not want that part of the paper to be left empty. A figure drawn without hands has often been left that way because hands are hard to draw.

A drawing can be a door into a child's inner world; but you go through that door together with the child, not in their place.

What the House-Tree-Person Test Cannot Tell Us: What Research Says

The scientific reliability of drawing tests has been debated for many years. One of the important sources in this debate is the comprehensive review by Lilienfeld, Wood and Garb, published in 2000 in Psychological Science in the Public Interest. According to this work, among projective tests, human figure drawings are among those with the most limited evidence of validity. The authors also state that for drawing tools aimed at detecting child abuse, findings replicated by independent teams are almost non-existent, and that there are signs of publication bias.

In a study on the use of human figure drawings to measure intelligence (Imuta et al., 2013, PLOS ONE), "Draw-a-Person" scores were found to be only weakly to moderately related to the Wechsler intelligence scales. The researchers therefore stress that drawing scores should not be relied upon for measuring intelligence.

A review of children's drawings also reports that drawings are affected by many factors such as the child's motivation, interests, graphic skill, how they are feeling that day and even the crayons in their hand; and that they show low validity and reliability in detecting abuse.

If we translate these findings into everyday language:

1. The same child may make different drawings on different days. Being tired, hungry, bored or excited changes the drawing.
2. Different practitioners may interpret the same drawing differently. Without fixed and reliable scoring, interpretation depends on the viewpoint of the interpreter.
3. Drawing skill varies with age and development. A handless figure drawn by a five-year-old and a handless figure drawn by a fourteen-year-old are not the same thing.
4. A drawing is not enough on its own to make a diagnosis. Neither depression, nor anxiety, nor abuse, nor intelligence level can be reliably inferred from a drawing.

This does not mean that drawings are of no use at all. But we need to define what they are useful for in the right place.

Why are these interpretations still so widespread?

Despite the scientific debate, there are understandable reasons why drawing interpretations attract so much interest. First, drawings are concrete; a piece of paper you can hold in your hand seems easier to understand than an abstract state of mind. Second, interpretations often feel as if they "fit": because almost everyone feels a little introverted, a little insecure or a little tired, general statements can be perceived as a personal finding. Third, short and definite answers reassure people; saying "There's a hollow in your child's drawing, so this is what happened" is easier than living with uncertainty. But this reassurance can come at the cost of anxiety pointed in the wrong direction or a real need that goes unnoticed.

So What Are Drawings Useful For?

House-tree-person drawings and similar exercises can be valuable in the following ways when used appropriately:

• Opening a conversation: A child who answers "I don't know" to the direct question "What's going on at home?" may be more at ease talking about the people in the house they have drawn. A drawing is a tool that opens conversation with a child.
• Building a relationship: Drawing reduces tension, especially in first meetings, and creates a relaxed atmosphere between the child and the professional.
• Offering an opportunity for observation: Behaviours such as how the child approaches the task, how long it takes them to start and how they react when they make a mistake can be more informative than the content of the drawing.
• Hearing the child's own account: In explaining the meaning of a figure, the main voice belongs to the person who drew it. The professional's task is not to impose an interpretation, but to ask with curiosity.

Assessment is always multi-source: an interview with the child and observation of their play, an interview with the parents, information from the teacher where needed and, where appropriate, standardised tests with demonstrated validity. A drawing can be a small part of this whole; it cannot be the basis for a decision on its own. You can also read our article on children's drawings analysis, where we look at common misconceptions about children's drawings in more detail.

Let us go back to the example at the start of this article. When a professional sees the nine-year-old's tree with a hollow, instead of offering an interpretation they might ask: "Does anyone live in this tree?" The child smiles and explains that a family of squirrels lives inside the tree and hides there in winter. The conversation can then stretch from how squirrels prepare for winter to the corner of the child's own home where he feels safe. What is valuable here is not the "meaning" of the hollow, but the conversation the hollow opens. A drawing exercise is at its most productive when the child's voice is louder than the interpreter's. After looking at a drawing, both the professional and the parent can ask "What does the child want to tell me in this drawing?" before asking "What do I see in this drawing?"

Who do drawings belong to?

A drawing made during an assessment or therapy process belongs to the person who made it. For this reason, keeping, photographing or showing the drawing to others should happen only with explicit permission; with children, this permission is obtained from the parent and the child's own consent is also respected. Drawings are covered by confidentiality, and at school or at home a child's drawing is not passed around to others for the purpose of a "diagnosis". Moreover, the professional does not impose the meaning of a drawing; instead of an interpretation such as "This tree is your mother", meaning is discovered together with the child and at their pace. These principles turn the drawing from a document that labels the child into part of a safe relationship built with them.

If Your Child Has Done the House-Tree-Person Test, What Can You Do?

If your child has done a drawing exercise at school or elsewhere, it may help to ask the following questions before worrying:

• What was the purpose of the exercise? Was it a getting-to-know-you activity, or part of an assessment process?
• Who assessed the drawing? Was it a mental health professional trained in this area, or was it done as part of a general activity?
• What other information was it assessed alongside? Were an interview, observation or standardised tests used?
• What is the result shared with you based on? If an interpretation was made based on a single detail, such as "There is this in the drawing, so there is this problem", you have the right to ask what it is based on.
• Where is the drawing kept and who can see it? A drawing made by a child is a personal product and should be treated as confidential.

There are also a few points to watch at home:

• Do not try to "diagnose" by comparing your child's drawings with lists on the internet. This can lead both to unnecessary anxiety and to an unfair view of your child.
• Do not ask your child "Why did you draw a hollow in the tree?" in an interrogating tone. If you are curious, choose an open-ended, playful question such as "Does this tree have a story?"
• Do not share your child's drawings on social media asking "What do you think it says?" This both harms your child's privacy and leaves you alone with a range of different and often baseless interpretations.

Adults and the house-tree-person drawing

Some adults also come across this drawing in a workshop, a personal development event or an assessment process. The same principle applies to adults: a drawing can be an interesting tool for starting to think about yourself; but it does not deliver a firm verdict on your personality, mental health or abilities. If at an event you are told firm conclusions about yourself based on your drawing, it is wise to receive them with caution. Being curious about what the drawing makes you think is always fine; it is enough to carry this as a question, not as a judgement.

When Should You Seek Professional Support?

A single detail in your child's drawings is not a reason to seek support. However, if beyond the drawings you notice the following signs in your child's daily life, it is a good idea to see a child and adolescent mental health professional:

• Marked and persistent changes in sleep, appetite or play habits,
• Withdrawing from friends, school or activities they enjoy,
• Frequent outbursts of anger, bouts of crying or fears that are not appropriate for their age,
• A marked change in behaviour after something they have been through,
• Your child harming themselves or talking about death frequently. In that situation, do not wait; in an emergency, call 112 (emergency services).

The assessment carried out in this case is based not on a single drawing, but on interviews with your child and with you, observation of play and, if necessary, standardised tests. You can read how psychological assessment is carried out in our article on psychological tests, and about work with children on the child and play therapy page. In therapy, drawing and play can be used as tools that make room for a child to express themselves; but the aim is not to "read" their drawings, but to discover meaning together with them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a child's intelligence be measured with a house-tree-person drawing?

No. Research shows that scores obtained from human figure drawings are only weakly to moderately related to standard intelligence tests. Intelligence and cognitive skills are measured with standardised tests of demonstrated validity and through professional assessment.

Can a drawing show that a child has been abused?

Drawings are not a reliable indicator for this; research reports low validity and reliability in detecting abuse. If you have such a concern about your child, focus not on the drawings but on your child's behaviour and what they tell you, and consult a professional.

Can the school share my child's drawing with others without my permission?

A drawing made by a child is a personal product, and drawings made for assessment purposes should be treated as confidential. You have the right to ask the school counselling service how the drawing is kept and who it is shared with.

• #projective tests
• #children's drawings
• #psychological assessment
• #parenting

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Eda Erkan Alapala

Klinik Psikolog. İstanbul Kent Üniversitesi Klinik Psikoloji Tezli Yüksek Lisans mezunu; bilişsel davranışçı terapi, çocuk merkezli oyun terapisi ve çocuk-ergen psikoterapisi alanlarında eğitimlerini tamamlamıştır.

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