Freud is the proposer of the subconscious theory. In the field of psychology, the House-Tree-Person Test (HTP) is a commonly used and unique psychological testing method. Through simple painting, it explores the psychological state and personality traits hidden deep in people’s subconscious, and is widely used in many fields such as mental health assessment, clinical diagnosis, and human resource management. Whether you want to understand your inner world or explore the psychological mysteries of others, the House Shuren Test can provide a unique perspective.
The Origin and Development of the Fangshuren Test
The origin of the House Treeman Test can be traced back to the ‘Tree Painting Quiz’ by American psychologist John Buck. In 1948, Buck first proposed this innovative method, requiring the subjects to draw houses, trees and figures on three sheets of white paper, laying the foundation for the subsequent development of the house tree test. In 1970, Robert C. Burn proposed dynamic house, tree and human analysis, drawing house, trees and figures on the same piece of paper, enriching the analytical dimensions of the test. In the 1960s, the Fangshuren test was introduced to Japan and was widely promoted and applied, and Japanese scholars improved it into an integrated HTP test. With the development of the Internet, Fangshuren Test has been introduced to China, and its application fields have expanded rapidly, and various forms have been developed.
Theoretical basis of Fangshuren Test
The Fangshuren test belongs to the psychological projection test, and its theoretical foundation is Freud’s subconscious theory. When the tester draws, he will unconsciously display the content in his subconscious through the images of houses, trees, characters, etc. Compared with other projection tests, the Fangshuren test has both similarities and obvious differences. The same is that they both involve the subconscious content of individual personality. The difference is that the Luoxia test and thematic sensation test (TAT) mainly rely on the overall consciousness function and analyze through speech and behavioral expression, while the Fangshuren test is non-verbal, mainly through painting analysis, involving the sensibility, maturity, flexibility, efficiency and comprehensiveness of the personality traits of the subjects, and at the same time it has a certain degree of creativity and intelligence.
Application scope of Fangshuren Test
- Mental Health Assessment: As an effective screening tool, it can quickly understand individual mental health status and help professionals discover potential psychological problems in a timely manner.
- Clinical Diagnosis: It is widely used in psychological diagnosis of outpatient and inpatient patients, providing key information for psychological counseling and treatment, and assisting in the formulation of personalized treatment plans.
- Human Resource Management: Enterprises can use the Fangshuren test to determine the tester’s mental health tendency, interpersonal tendency, management control tendency and self-control emotional status, providing a scientific basis for selecting talents.
- Educational Consultation: It helps to understand the psychological state of adolescents, mediate parent-child relationships, treat and correct bad adolescents, and promote the healthy growth of adolescents.
- Art Therapy: Use the principles of painting therapy to help mental patients recover and stimulate positive inner strength.
- Criminal Psychology: Plays an auxiliary role in the assessment of the psychological state and personality characteristics of the suspect, providing reference for case investigation and crime prevention.
Advantages of the Fangshuren Test
- Activity, compositional, non-verbal: Avoid the deformation of the reaction content in the verbalization process, so that the tester can display personality traits more specifically, and help professionals capture psychological conflicts that are difficult to express in words.
- A preliminary understanding of intelligence level: During the test, you can initially understand the intelligence level of the subject and will not cause psychological trauma experience.
- Repeatable test: Repeat tests will not produce exercise effects, which is conducive to repeated tests and tracking and observation of the subjects, and timely grasping their psychological changes.
- Applicable to individuals and groups: Whether it is individual tests or group tests, they can play a good role and meet the testing needs in different scenarios.
- Easy to operate: Just prepare simple materials such as test paper, pencils and erasers. The operation process is simple and easy to operate, and it is easy to unfold among a large number of people.
Test method of Fangshuren Test
Preparation before testing
Prepare A4 or 8-open white paper as quiz paper, 2B pencil for painting, and eraser for modification. Clearly inform the subjects that they need to play freely when painting, and must include houses, trees and people; avoid drawing stickmen and cartoon people, try to draw yourself; do not use rulers and other tools, nor copy them; allow modifications, and other elements can be added.
Test Instructions
- Single test: Tell the subject to test ‘Please take a pencil and draw a house carefully. Draw a house of any structure, as long as you try hard to draw. If you feel that you are not satisfied with the drawing, you can use an eraser to modify it. There is no special time limit, as long as you draw it seriously.’ For the integrated house tree test, the guidance is ‘Please use a pencil to draw a painting including houses, trees, and characters on this white paper; draw whatever you want, but you are required to draw carefully; do not use sketching or copying, and do not use a ruler. There is no time limit, and modification is allowed.’
- Collective Test: The guide is ‘Please draw a house in the box A. After drawing, draw a tree in the box B, draw a person in the box C, and then draw the house, tree, and person in the box E, and start below.’
Test process record
Record the time of beginning drawing and completion time, the order of the picture parts, the question or talk to yourself during the drawing process, observe their emotional state and cooperative attitude, record the order of painting, and ask the subject to name the painting.
Ask a question after drawing
After completing the drawing, ask questions about the house, trees and characters. Regarding the house, ask about location, materials, surrounding environment, etc.; regarding trees, ask about types, growth environment, seasons, etc.; regarding the characters, ask about age, occupation, family status, etc.
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Analysis method of Fangshuren Test
Overall Analysis
- Overall impression: Observe the subject’s performance during the test, including attitude, emotions, painting style, etc.
- Form analysis: Pay attention to the test time, painting order, distance and sense of distance, picture size, position, cutting, stroke pressure and line thickness, lines, shadow and shadow, erasing, symmetry, transparency, three-dimensionality, direction, detail, omission, movement, ground lines, paper use, etc.
- Overall architecture analysis: Take into account elements such as color, feeling, picture size, stroke strength, composition, and painting stories.
House Analysis
- Significance: Houses represent family, family, and private spheres, and refer to a sense of security.
- Theme: Building type may indicate realistic personality, temple type may indicate extremes, fairy tale house type may show fantasy, and courtyard type may indicate peacefulness and conservatism.
- Roof: Detailed tiles may indicate a tendency to force, not drawing tiles means a strong sense of security, and drawing tiles may indicate a lack of security; attics or windows may indicate secrets or ambitions; skylights may symbolize unique personality; too large roof proportions may indicate a fantasy and detached from reality.
- Chimney and smoke: It may prompt inner stress, pursue family warmth, and the thick smoke may indicate family conflict and inner tension, and the direction of the chimney may also reflect psychological problems.
- Wall: Symbolizes one’s strength, the ability to resist and defend against external attacks, and the dense lines indicate excessive defense of interpersonal relationships.
- Gate: A channel that symbolizes the family and the environment, reflects interpersonal relationships. No door may indicate lack of communication with family members and weak emotions; the front door may indicate active contact with the outside world; the small door may indicate no sociality; the door blocked by objects may indicate a tendency to escape; the high threshold may indicate a relationship with people in their own way.
- Window: Symbolizes the way of passive contact with people, the inner defense state. No windows may indicate retreat and paranoid tendencies; many windows may indicate openness and desire to contact the outside world; curtains may indicate sensitivity, suspicion, introverted and uneasy; iron railings of windows may indicate sensitivity, suspicion, and lack of security.
- Flowers and Trees: Flowers and trees that are not related to the family may prompt a sense of uneasiness, and trees covering the house may indicate a desire to depend on them.
- Lu, mountain: Road refers to communication ability, mountain refers to the need for protection and safety.
Tree Analysis
- Significance: represents the relationship between the individual and the environment, the meaning of life, the self-image, and the state of balance.
- Type: Evergreens may indicate vitality, deciduous trees may indicate influenced by external pressure, pine trees may indicate self-control, birch trees may indicate more sensitive, coconut trees and willow trees may indicate introvertedness, and single-line trees may indicate depression.
- Trunk: Thick trunks may indicate active activity and tendency to attack; small trunks may indicate a sense of weakness and discomfort. Only two lines are used to depict the trunk, and one line is used to describe the trunk, representing impulsiveness or fickleness; emphasizing the trunk may indicate suppression of emotions and bias towards intellectual analysis; emphasizing the trunk may indicate that the emotions are not yet mature.
- Barrow: means the part that comes into contact with the outside world or others. Completely blackened may indicate tension with the outside world, feeling depression and uneasy; the shadow on the right may indicate good sociality, strong adaptability, and positive intentions; the shadow on the left may indicate introverted personality, and will suppress oneself with dreams, making it difficult to express oneself; spotty, thick and short lines may indicate rough personality and dissatisfaction with reality; the smooth curve may indicate good adaptability.
- Branch: It means pursuing the satisfaction of the environment, communicating with others, and symbolizing the power to achieve goals. Large branches may indicate the release of energy and pay attention to details; open branches may indicate direct interaction with people, not concealing defense, sometimes impulsive and reckless; closed branches, surrounded by leaves outside, may indicate indirect release, and drawing a large canopy indicates strong self-protection, gentleness, and good balance.
- Crown: Symbolizes individual character. Flat crowns may prompt external pressure, cloud crowns may prompt coordinate life with others, and spherical crowns may prompt dual personality.
- Leaves, flowers, fruits: Leaves that are significantly larger than branches may indicate inner weakness, falling leaves may indicate loss of self-control, blooming trees may indicate attention to external manifestations, fruit trees may indicate strong desire to rely, and falling trees may indicate feelings of rejection.
- Relationship with nature: The sun may symbolize authority, dark clouds may prompt confrontation with authoritative people, sunlight shines on trees may indicate that emotional desires are not satisfied, and sunsets may indicate depression.
- Other: Drawing ground lines first and then drawing trees may indicate strong dependence. Drawing ground lines after the tree is completed may indicate steady action, and drawing the crown of the tree first may indicate inner anxiety.
Character Analysis
- Significance: Reflects self-image and personality integrity.
- Overall: Drawing the head, body, hands, and feet may indicate a good sense of self. Cartoon characters or abstract paintings may indicate a defensive mentality. A tilted human figure may indicate an imbalance in mind. Just like the image may indicate a hope to be understood. A side image may indicate a hope to maintain a sense of mystery. A back may indicate defense and rejection.
- Somatic: Too large body may indicate a heavy defense heart, too small body may indicate inferiority complex, and a round body may indicate a lack of initiative.
- Limbs: No arms may indicate guilt and guilt, no feet may indicate instability, putting hands on hips may indicate narcissism to respect authority, raising arms flat may indicate hope to adapt to the environment quickly, thick arms may indicate strong mobility, and thin arms may indicate lack of physical strength.
- Legs and feet: Long legs may indicate that you want to make decisions, long legs may indicate a lack of stability, small feet may indicate a lack of security, and large and small feet may indicate an unstable career foundation.
- Clothing: Round collars may indicate traditional female characteristics, emphasize buttons may indicate childlike innocence or strong dependence, emphasize pockets may indicate dependence, emphasize shoes may indicate attention to economic conditions, and emphasize jewelry may indicate attention to appearance.
- Head: A larger head may indicate a strong desire for knowledge, an excessive head-body ratio may indicate an inadequate adaptation to society, omitting expressions may indicate a desire to improve interpersonal relationships, and an hostility may indicate on the side.
- Eye: Closed eyes or lack of eyeballs may indicate narcissistic hostility, large eyes may indicate suspicious and delusionality, stunning eyes may indicate hostility, confusion in eyes may indicate confusion in thinking, and eyelashes may indicate attention to the beauty of details.
- Eyebrow: Neat and strong may prompt the movements to be cleansed, messy may indicate the personality is rough, and upturned eyebrows may indicate contempt for criticism.
- Nose: Large noses may indicate strong sexual demands, and emphasis on nostrils may indicate dissatisfaction with reality.
- Oral, lips, teeth: Excessive emphasis on the mouth may indicate that the mouth may cause injury to the outlet, opening the mouth may indicate passive dependence, a single-shaped lips may indicate self-claim, and opening the mouth may indicate efforts to strive for recognition.
- Hair: Curly hair may indicate sentimentality, straight and long hair may indicate simplicity, short hair may indicate competence, and vertical hair may indicate aggressiveness.
- Hand: represents dominance over the environment. If extended, it means strong dominance. If placed behind you, you usually have passive aggressive behavior.
- Foot: represents the activity power, the more you divide, the stronger the activity power.
###Additional analysis
- Astronomy: The sun indicates the need for warmth in adult paintings, the moon indicates melancholy, the cloud indicates anxiety, and the rain indicates depression.
- Plant: Flowers represent longing for love and beauty, grass represents vitality and also represents anger.
- Animals: Snakes represent fear, birds represent freedom, dogs represent loyalty, cats represent freedom, rabbits represent good deeds, frogs represent healing, squirrels represent hoarding, butterflies represent transformation, and pigs represent happiness and laziness.
Analysis and Interpretation Principles
- integrity: When analyzing local elements, the overall style and size of the house tree person must be taken into account.
- Dynamic: Through multiple tests, observe whether the subjects have positive changes after understanding their situation.
- Subjectivity: The test results need to be analyzed by a professional psychologist. Ordinary people can refer to the analysis manual for simple analysis, but pay attention to their subjectivity.
- Adjustment: Self-test can only be used as an auxiliary solution. If the subject is subject to test has serious psychological disorders, it is recommended to seek help from a professional psychologist.
- Bold hypotheses and verify carefully: When interpreting, you need to boldly propose hypotheses and verify carefully to ensure the accuracy of the analysis results.
Precautions for House Tree People Test
- Non-art test: The focus is not on evaluating artistic abilities. The subject does not need to pursue painting skills, but only needs to express his heart truly.
- Avoid copying: To ensure the authenticity and effectiveness of the test results, you should follow your inner thoughts when painting and never copy other people’s works.
- Detail requirements: Character painting must draw key details such as limbs and torso, which are crucial to accurately analyzing psychological state.
- Print order: Remember the order of your paintings. The order of paintings can reflect the psychological activities and thinking patterns of the subject to be tested to a certain extent.
- Cultural Differences: Under different cultural backgrounds, people may have differences in their cognition and understanding of houses, trees, characters and various attachments. These cultural factors must be fully considered during analysis to avoid misunderstandings.
- Personal Style: The test results may be affected by factors such as personal painting style. Comprehensive consideration should be taken into account during analysis to avoid one-sided conclusions.
In the research and application of modern psychology, PsycTest official website (psychtest.cn) provides convenient testing channels and rich learning resources for individuals and professionals interested in the Fangshuren test. Through standardized testing processes and professional analysis and interpretation, more people can deeply explore their own subconsciousness.
Summarize
The House Tree People Test (HTP) is an important psychological projection test that opens the door to the subconscious world. It provides insight into the individual’s subconscious, personality traits, emotional state and mental health. Through careful analysis of paintings, we can uncover secrets hidden deep in our hearts and better understand ourselves and others. However, the Fangshuren test is not omnipotent. The results need to be combined with other psychological testing tools, and undergo clinical observation by professionals and comprehensive analysis to draw more accurate and comprehensive conclusions. I hope this article can help you deeply understand the secrets of the Fangshuren test, so that this powerful psychological tool can play a greater value in life and work.
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