Abstracto

The effects of contested divorce on children's emotional state based on their family drawings and life quality

Luca Ad

The aim of this study: Understanding children and adolescents who experienced contested divorce, focusing on the aspects of their emotional experiences in the family, their overall mood and quality of life. Method: Comparing children who experienced contested divorce with those who live in a complete family, based on drawing tests and questionnaires (Inventar zur Erfassung der Lebensqualität bei Kindern und Jugendlichen - ILK). There were 21 people in the examined group and 21 in the control group. The answers to the questionnaires (ILK) gave us information about life quality, while drawing tests showed the bonding patterns inside families and the extent of family dissonance. Results: Looking at family ties, based in the ILK questionnaire we did not find any differences between the examined group and the control group. However, drawings of the examined group held more signs of dissonance than the control group’s. In the case of bonding there wasn’t significant difference between the groups. In the examined group, the signs of dissonance and bonding signs showed correlation. Conclusions: Signs of dissonance in drawings apparently show that family disharmony has a strong impact on children and adolescents. Contradictory results in the questionnaire point out that while children might not express verbally their issues with the family, projective drawing tests susceptibly mark those feelings.