Creativity and Self-Exploration in Projective Drawings of Abused Women: Evaluating the Inside Me–Outside Me Workshop

What is it about?

This study evaluated a creative workshop where college students (N = 300) devised self-expressive products to explore their inner and outer worlds. Participants devised products with drawing and writing components to examine their relationships with negative life events, self-concepts, and worldviews. Participants then evaluated the workshop. Artists and psychologists rated products for effort, creativity, and self-exploration. Participants evaluated the workshop as valuable (e.g., helped them feel mentally flexible, gave them freedom to express inner feelings). Past stressful life events correlated with positive evaluations of the workshop and self-exploration shown in products. Past visual art experience, personality (openness), and verbal ability predicted the creativity of products, whereas gender and life events interacted to predict self-exploration. A key finding of this study was that women who had experienced physical, sexual, or emotional abuse devised the most self-exploratory products and most strongly evaluated the activity as valuable.

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Why is it important?

This research indicates that using art and writing for self-exploration is associated with gender and exposure to negative life experiences. In particular, it indicates that women who had experienced physical, sexual, or emotional abuse engage with self-exploratory art making and find the creative process valuable.

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