Denial and self-denigration in the draw-a-person profiles of alcoholics

The present study attempts to cross-validate earlier findings that alcoholics tend to use more denial and are more demeaning of their characters than controls on the objective-projective Apperceptive Personality Test. One hundred nonalcoholic, nonpatient controls were matched to 100 outpatient alcoholics on age, race, and social class. All subjects were given the objective-projective Draw A Person Questionnaire, which was scored for 14 scales. As hypothesized and consistent with the earlier findings, alcoholics used more denial and were more often demeaning of their drawn characters than were controls. These and other exploratory findings are discussed.