Indications of physical, sexual, and verbal victimization in projective tree drawings

Several facets of the Tree-Scar-Trauma hypothesis were addressed. The first inquiry was whether scars, knotholes, and/or broken branches on a drawn tree are indicative of previous victimization. A statistically significant relationship between these variables was found. The study also examined differences between mental health patients (N = 56) and control subjects (N = 215) with regard to their abuse history and tree drawings. No significant differences between these two populations were found. A modification of Buck's (1948) hypothesis with regard to the relationship between the location of traumatic indicators on projective tree drawings and age of traumatization was tested and not validated. However, the association between the duration of physical abuse and the number of indicators on the tree was statistically significant.