How do emotional blocks effect a person's world view?

Some version of this question is usually asked by psychologists or others with an interest in perception and cognition. I have already suggested that cognitive problems are part of the superstructure over an emotional base. Modern psychology demonstrates more and more that perception is a process of unconscious selection of some focused items from a diffuse field of impressions, and I would suggest that this selection process is largely based in the person's emotional attitudes and expectations. Both cognition and perception tend to reorganize themselves spontaneously if therapy, or some other intensely felt event, has produced emotional change.

I have had participants in seminars do an experiment which I first developed for a lecture to an art therapy conference. (Some of my clients in therapy have been enrolled simultaneously in an art therapy program, and watching their paintings change during the course of therapy has stimulated my interest in this link between emotional and perceptual change.) The experiment is loosely based on the standard psychological "house-tree-person" test. This is a projective test in which the details of the three items indicate the person's attitudes to the self and others. In my experiment, the details are unimportant because each drawing is done very quickly, in 20-30 seconds. The reader is invited to try it for him or herself:

Take four sheets of blank paper, and a strong pencil or crayon. You will be asked to draw a rough sketch of a house, a tree and a person on each sheet, each time as fast as you can, and following these instructions:

Do not pause between sheets to inspect your work. Take the first sheet.

1. Begin to pant high in your chest, gasping in as much air as possible. At the same time let your jaw drop open wide; open your eyes as wide as you can; and raise your eyebrows as high as you can. Maintain this breathing pattern and expression, and draw.

Put the first sheet aside and take the second.

2. Breathe out harshly and quickly a few times, making a sound and pushing out as much air as possible. Keep doing this. At the same time, stick your jaw and lower lip forward; narrow your eyes; and frown so that a knot is formed between your eyes. Now, draw.

Put the second sheet aside and take the third.

3. Reduce your breathing to a minimum. Let your jaw hang open. Let your eyes go blank as you look at the paper, defocusing completely. Draw.

Put the third sheet aside and take the fourth.

4. Become your normal self again. Pay no special attention to your breathing or facial expression. Draw.

If you want to try this experiment, please do so before reading further.

The reader will have recognized that step 1 is an imitation of fear, step 2 of anger. Most people do recognize this, although it is not spelled out in the instructions. Step 3 is a "spaced out" expression. Step 4, normal.

In seminars I have the participants compare their own and each others' drawings, if they feel comfortable doing so. The reader can simply spread all four drawings out and compare them. This is not a personality test. It is an exploration of how emotion, as evoked in a simulation, can effect perception. However, in looking at your pictures you may reach some conclusions about yourself. Do not take these too seriously. But you may, for example, have noticed that your step 4 "normal" drawing is more similar to one in particular of your previous drawings. This may indicate your predominant emotional "tone." You may find the drawings rather uniform, which may indicate some anxiety at abandoning yourself to emotion. Or you may have found a particular expression anxiety-provoking or difficult.

Generally, step 1 produces a drawing in which lines are disconnected; the three items become looming and large; the forms are rounded or oblong with few sharp edges; and pencil pressure is light. This is the way the world is perceived in fear. Occasionally though, the drawing is different, with tighter, smaller figures, and a harder pencil pressure. In this case, you might ask yourself if you have been able to imitate the expression fully, and if you tend to fight against a fearful attitude with an attitude of attack.

Generally, step 2 produces a drawing in which lines are straight; the three items are reduced and compressed; the forms are sharp and angular; and pencil pressure is heavy. All this is consistent with the "attack" of the expression. It is the way the world tends to be perceived in anger. Occasionally this sharpness does not come through, and the focus remains rounded or vague. You might look at whether you had difficulty with the attack expression.

Generally, step 3 produces a drawing which is more similar to 1 than to 2, but with an increased fuzziness or vagueness, or with a tendency to fragmentation, or to abstraction or geometry. The "blanking" of the eyes cuts you off somewhat from reality. Whereas step 1 evoked a panicky kind of fear, step 3 is more a "fright paralysis."

It may be useful for counselors to have their clients do this experiment. But, remember, it is not a test, and no diagnostic conclusions should be made—although, of course, any increased knowledge of the client can support or render questionable a diagnosis. I find it unnecessary to discuss the drawings with the person much more than I have been doing here. It is often an interesting experience from which the person will draw his or her own conclusions.