The psychopathology of everyday art: a quantitative Study - World ...

Measurements relating to Form from the literature
This element covers a composite of variables which indicate mass, shape and focus.
Many disorders indicate that fragmentation, disorganisation or degeneration of the image
takes place in psychiatric illness. Lack of or dissolution of form indicating disassociation
has been graphically portrayed by artists as symptomatic of depression and other
psychiatric illness, but not of stress disorder such as anorexia. Interpretation of
regression from childlike forms has been inconclusive. Repetition of forms is said to
differentiate schizophrenia from other patients and normal controls, but repetitions are
hard to identify without aesthetic training and probably vary considerably. The simple
consideration of presence of form should differentiate at least patients from controls,
with a possibility of exclusion of stress disorder. The other characteristics require
judgements about skill or intention.
The DAPA Category of Dominant Form: Global judgements commonly try to make
an aesthetic assessment of the composition. Evidence also suggested that displacement
of main images strongly indicated general abnormality. Wadlington and McWhinnie's 247
concept of significant form seemed to encompass the main elements of this commonality.
Their attempt to define it was incoherent, partly because it depended on artistic
terminology. It is adapted here, perhaps simplistically, as dominant form; the dominant
shape and the simple assessment as to where it lies. Dominant form was a later addition
to the measure and was used for the main study but was absent in the first study.
247 Wadlington & McWhinnie (1973) op.cit.
191