GIL, C. A.; TARDIVO, L. C. Concepção de doença mental em estudantes de graduação em Psicologia: um estudo compreensivo por meio de desenhos temáticos [Graduate students’ mental illness conceptions: a comprehensive study through Thematic Drawing-and-Story Procedure]. Mudanças – Psicologia da Saúde, v. 15, n. 2, p. 114-120, jul-dez. 2007.
Available on: https://www.metodista.br/revistas/revistas-ims/index.php/MUD/article/view/615/614
The objective of the present paper was to analyze and to reflect about the conceptions of psychology graduate students on mental illness. Thematic Drawing-and-Story Procedure was used with 50 second year graduate students, 16 men and 34 women between 18 and 20 years, who had not had previous contact with the discipline of Psychopathology, with the following instructions: “Draw a mentally sick person and after that, write a story on this person”. The drawings were analyzed according to qualitative and quantitative techniques. As a result, the Thematic Drawing-and-Story Procedure by males reflected in their majority associations with adaptive difficulty to reality, helplessness and loneliness. Most of the women’s drawings seemed to be connected to the same trend. It was also possible to evidence conceptions related to the psychic plan (symptoms) and to pathological aspects, mainly schizophrenia and depression. A significant number of drawings were related to mental illness conceptions which reflect the organic plan, with associations to mental handicaps, difficulties in learning, and aging. There were also associations to cultural references and related to fantasies about treatments and cures. It was concluded that students are greatly concerned about borderlines between normal and pathological, and that the issue creates identification and distress among students.