This test is built on the real method of Louis Corman (1964), derived from the Family Drawing technique proposed by Maurice Porot (1952). The difference comes down to one instruction: Porot asked people to "draw your family," while Corman asked them to "draw a family you imagine," leaving more room for unconscious tendencies to express themselves freely.
Corman's four planes
- Graphic plane: stroke strength, area of the page used.
- Structural plane: the relationships between characters.
- Content plane: who gets valued or devalued, and how.
- Underlying psychoanalytic interpretation.
This report focuses on the first three, the ones that connect to something measurable in your drawing.
How the report works
It uses 11 of these indicators: 4 are measured directly on the canvas (size, placement, thickness, shading) and 7 depend on you telling us what you drew (who you drew first, whether any character is bigger, whether you kept the parental figures together, animals, among others), since they require recognizing content. Alongside each one, decades of later research checking whether Corman's claims hold up.
A canvas drawn with a mouse will never capture the nuance of a real pencil stroke, but it does capture magnitudes (size, position, thickness), which is exactly what we measure. We're not claiming diagnostic precision, and neither does the original test.
Sources
- Corman, L. (1964). Le dessin de famille: test pour enfants. Presses Universitaires de France.
- Porot, M. (1952). Le dessin de la famille (contribution à l'étude des relations familiales du point de vue de l'enfant). Doctoral thesis, Université de Lyon.
- Handler, L., & Habenicht, D. (1994). The Kinetic Family Drawing Technique: A review of the literature. Journal of Personality Assessment, 62(3), 440-464.
- Klumpp, C. F. B., Vilar, M., Pereira, M., & Andrade, M. S. (2021). Study of discriminant validity evidence for the Kinetic Family Drawing. Avaliação Psicológica, 20(2), 241-252.
- Handler, L., & Reyher, J. (1965). Figure drawing anxiety indexes: A review of the literature. Journal of Projective Techniques and Personality Assessment, 29(3), 305-313.
All possible results
Your Family Drawing Report
Eleven real indicators from Corman's method, each one connected to what you drew: what he claimed about that specific value, and what the scientific evidence says today.
See the detail
Louis Corman published his method in 1964, building on Maurice Porot's Family Drawing. Decades of later research (Handler & Habenicht, 1994; Klumpp et al., 2021) find weak empirical support for most of his interpretive hypotheses. This report exists to show the real method, with the same rigor used to study it today, not to diagnose anything about you.
Indicative result, not a diagnosis. Drawing tests have no recognised diagnostic validity: research does not support most of their interpretations. This describes what you drew today, not your personality or your psychological state.
How this test was built
A report with 11 indicators : 4 are measured directly on your drawing (size, placement, line thickness, shading) and 7 depend on your answer about what you drew (order, differential size, parental block, distance, animals, omission, smudge…
This is not a psychological diagnosis or a validated personality test, and it does not replace a professional's evaluation.
None of this report's 11 indicators has confirmed empirical support: the most cited review of this family of techniques (Handler and Habenicht, 1994) doesn't identify any single family-drawing sign with consistent empirical backing, and a…
See the full methodology
What it measures
A report with 11 indicators: 4 are measured directly on your drawing (size, placement, line thickness, shading) and 7 depend on your answer about what you drew (order, differential size, parental block, distance, animals, omission, smudges).
What model it uses
Corman organized the reading of the drawing into four planes:
- Graphic plane: line strength, section of the page.
- Structural plane: relationships between the figures.
- Content plane: who is valued or devalued.
- Underlying psychoanalytic interpretation (not covered by this report).
Where that model comes from
Louis Corman published the method in 1964, derived from Maurice Porot's Family Drawing (1952): where Porot asked people to draw their real family, Corman asked them to imagine one, leaving more room for unconscious tendencies to come through.
How the result is calculated
You draw an imagined family on a single canvas. The size, placement, line thickness, and shading are measured directly; the other 7 indicators depend on 7 short questions about what you drew, because they require recognizing content (who you drew first, whether you separated the parental figures...).
What your result means
Each indicator connects your specific value to the reading Corman or those who continued his work gave that exact value, and to what the evidence says today about that claim.
What it does NOT mean
This is not a psychological diagnosis or a validated personality test, and it does not replace a professional's evaluation. It's a symbolic reading from clinical tradition, meant for curiosity and reflection, not a tool that reliably reveals your traits.
Limitations
None of this report's 11 indicators has confirmed empirical support: the most cited review of this family of techniques (Handler and Habenicht, 1994) doesn't identify any single family-drawing sign with consistent empirical backing, and a discriminant validity study with 112 children found that only 38.46% of the items analyzed significantly distinguished between a normative group and a clinical group (Klumpp et al., 2021). In the broadest review of human figure drawings, Motta, Little, and Tobin (1993) reach a similar conclusion: they don't reliably assess personality, behavior, or emotional state.
Academic references
- Corman, L. (1964). Le test du dessin de famille. Presses Universitaires de France.
- Porot, M. (1952). Le dessin de la famille. (direct precursor of Corman's test)
- Motta, R. W., Little, S. G., y Tobin, M. I. (1993). The use and abuse of human figure drawings. School Psychology Quarterly, 8(3), 162-169.
Frequently asked questions
Is this test a psychological diagnosis?
No, not under any circumstances. Even Corman's original test, applied by a trained clinician, isn't considered a reliable standalone diagnostic tool today. This report is informational: it shows the real method alongside the real scientific evidence about its validity.
How is this different from asking 'draw your family'?
Corman deliberately asked people to 'draw a family you imagine,' not their real family. He believed that ambiguity leaves more room for unconscious tendencies to express themselves, instead of limiting the drawing to a faithful portrait of the child's actual family.
Why doesn't any indicator have 'partial empirical support'?
Because, unlike other tests on this site where we do find a real exception (like the rounded torso or color in the human figure test), the most cited review of this family of techniques (Handler & Habenicht, 1994) doesn't identify any single family-drawing sign with consistent empirical support. We'd rather say that plainly than invent an exception that doesn't exist.
Can I retake the test?
Yes, as many times as you want. We don't save your drawing or your previous answers.
Is it free?
Yes, it's completely free: no sign-up or payment needed to take the test and see your result.
See all 6 questions
How long does the test take? How many questions does it have?
You draw your family, then answer 7 short questions about your drawing. About 4-5 minutes in total.
