Investigação clínica da personalidade de adolescentes homicidas através do Procedimento de Desenhos-Estórias [Clinical Investigation of homicidal teenagers´ personality through the Drawing-and-Story Procedure]

MÁZZARO, A.C. (1984) – Investigação clínica da personalidade de adolescentes homicidas através do Procedimento de Desenhos-Estórias [Clinical Investigation of homicidal teenagers´ personality through the Drawing-and-Story Procedure]. Master’s Dissertation. Campinas (SP), Instituto de Psicologia da PUCCAMP, 146 pp. 

The present study had the objective of achieving the clinical investigation of the personality of 18 homicidal adolescents, using the Drawing-and-Story Procedure by W. Trinca as well as information derived from the patients’ life history. The results of the analysis were obtained from the analysis of relevant categories, through the analysis of significant mental processes and through the Drawing-Story-Procedure conducting personality investigation in this kind of patients. The results suggest that these clients present a generalized complaint regarding the satisfaction of primitive needs for affection, that in the final analysis are related with the need for introjection of good and loving objects. The absence of these good objects or the difficulty of the same in fulfilling their constructive role for emotional development creates a situation of intense unconscious conflicts. This conflict refers to the struggle between the loving impulses and the destructive impulses, with the consequent presence of persecutory and depressive anxieties. The resources of the ego seem to be deficient to face the conflicting situation of instinctive life. There is an unconscious fear that the destructive forces might prevail. The unconscious existence of powerful anxieties and guilt feelings, is a result of the presence of a superego with broad punitive characteristics. The projective material reveals a frequent phenomenon, related to the nature of the mental state during the accomplishment of the homicide act: it’s a moment at which the possibilities of controlling the destructive impulses disappear and invade the conscious life in a demolishing way. It’s suggested that at this moment the psychotic nucleus of the personality predominates, permitting the accomplishment of unconscious homicidal tendencies. The results indicate that the Drawing-and-Story Procedure, when used as an auxiliary-technique for the psychological diagnosis of homicide patients, shows a series of utilities. It’s a well accepted instrument by the patients and shows advantages in the means of mobilizing and overcoming conscious and unconscious resistance. Its utilization comes to complement the obtained information through other instruments of investigation. It’s suggested that the Drawing-and-Story Procedure should be used as an initial instrument on the series of examinations of the psychodiagnosis process since it’s able to supply useful assumptions to be checked subsequently, besides making the diagnostic investigation procedure easier. However, it pointed out the need for subsequent research to deepen the study of the ideas that came from this exploratory work.

Walter Trinca Copyright 2001 – All rights reserved.

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