symbols (and sexual acts) often symbolize and express violence. Somewhere in this area may be theoretical room for the incredibly violent, often genital, yet virtually asexual fantasies of George’s Rorschach.
Summary: April 3.
Two more long sessions with George …
(… it is interesting to inject here the reminder that Sergeant Outerbridge was still on the struggling staff of an overcrowded, underequipped military neuropsychiatric hospital, carrying a tremendous load, working impossible hours. The fact that he had found six of them for George, and the lack of complaint from Col. Williams, attest to his devotion and superhuman energy.)
… have brought us through motor coordination tests, the house drawing, the human figure drawing, and the Thematic Apperception.
The motor coordination was the first thing we tackled after the harrowing experience of the Rorschach. It consisted of his copying eight different geometric figures composed of circles, squares, wavy lines and dots. He did them precisely, with care and planning, making corrections to improve them. It appeared that despite a compulsively rigid manner of performing, his motor control was in good order and not overrun easily by his deeper, guarded (frightened?) feelings. Watching him do it, I felt I was watching a pencil-and-paper re-enactment of each new experience he had ever had in controlled circumstances—the orphanage, the Army bases. He sought the channels between fences; he eagerly searched for the areas in which he might, once they were known, run freely without having to think. It was easy to see how he had been able to hold down two years and more of Army motor mechanics, working much of the time alone, and free to use his hands.
Reassured somewhat, I ventured a little closer to the emotional edge, always uncertain where it might begin to crumble under our feet. I asked him to draw a house.
He drew a traditional house with a formal, landscaped garden, in the artistic style of an anxious six-year-old. Each window was given twenty or more panes; the flower beds and three trees were formed by forceful, tight, tiny scrawlings in contrast to the tenuous thin lines framing the larger structure of the house. Two things stood out as grotesque: the garden he placed in midair above the first story and sprawling out into the upper wall of the house, and the roof was simply cut out of his drawing by the top of the paper.
It was hardly a balanced picture. It showed poor perspective and poor planning. It suggested that he could not be counted upon for responsible handling of everyday adult reality. He ignored the fundamentals, preoccupied with his private details. He could manage in compulsive fashion if his life were kept simple, but he might otherwise go to pieces.
I drew a deep breath (silently) and told him to draw a human figure. I said a human figure, but he proceeded to draw a man and a woman, hurriedly, carelessly, as if, having made the outlines, he could not wait to blacken them in, which he did with a heavy hand: filled-in black legs, arms, torsos right up to the chin, then a round black hat on the woman, a square black hat on the man, close over their eyes. Cover up, cover up … anxiety.
He stopped and I said, “Is that all?”
To the best of my ability I said it casually and neutrally, but the heavy eaves of his eyes flicked up and he scanned my face, as avidly, for a second, as he had conned the inkblots. There was a flicker of frown between his brows. “Can I do it over?”
“Sure.”
He put his pencil to the paper, held it still, and flashed me that look again. If I believed in telepathy, which emphatically I do not, I would have testified to the receipt of an urgent, “ Can I tell? ” Then he set to work.
I thought, as I watched him, how the human psyche, especially the ill one, cries out for contact and communication. George’s partial alexia—the inability to use the spoken word while he could write with such facility—was a
Summary: April 3.
Two more long sessions with George …
(… it is interesting to inject here the reminder that Sergeant Outerbridge was still on the struggling staff of an overcrowded, underequipped military neuropsychiatric hospital, carrying a tremendous load, working impossible hours. The fact that he had found six of them for George, and the lack of complaint from Col. Williams, attest to his devotion and superhuman energy.)
… have brought us through motor coordination tests, the house drawing, the human figure drawing, and the Thematic Apperception.
The motor coordination was the first thing we tackled after the harrowing experience of the Rorschach. It consisted of his copying eight different geometric figures composed of circles, squares, wavy lines and dots. He did them precisely, with care and planning, making corrections to improve them. It appeared that despite a compulsively rigid manner of performing, his motor control was in good order and not overrun easily by his deeper, guarded (frightened?) feelings. Watching him do it, I felt I was watching a pencil-and-paper re-enactment of each new experience he had ever had in controlled circumstances—the orphanage, the Army bases. He sought the channels between fences; he eagerly searched for the areas in which he might, once they were known, run freely without having to think. It was easy to see how he had been able to hold down two years and more of Army motor mechanics, working much of the time alone, and free to use his hands.
Reassured somewhat, I ventured a little closer to the emotional edge, always uncertain where it might begin to crumble under our feet. I asked him to draw a house.
He drew a traditional house with a formal, landscaped garden, in the artistic style of an anxious six-year-old. Each window was given twenty or more panes; the flower beds and three trees were formed by forceful, tight, tiny scrawlings in contrast to the tenuous thin lines framing the larger structure of the house. Two things stood out as grotesque: the garden he placed in midair above the first story and sprawling out into the upper wall of the house, and the roof was simply cut out of his drawing by the top of the paper.
It was hardly a balanced picture. It showed poor perspective and poor planning. It suggested that he could not be counted upon for responsible handling of everyday adult reality. He ignored the fundamentals, preoccupied with his private details. He could manage in compulsive fashion if his life were kept simple, but he might otherwise go to pieces.
I drew a deep breath (silently) and told him to draw a human figure. I said a human figure, but he proceeded to draw a man and a woman, hurriedly, carelessly, as if, having made the outlines, he could not wait to blacken them in, which he did with a heavy hand: filled-in black legs, arms, torsos right up to the chin, then a round black hat on the woman, a square black hat on the man, close over their eyes. Cover up, cover up … anxiety.
He stopped and I said, “Is that all?”
To the best of my ability I said it casually and neutrally, but the heavy eaves of his eyes flicked up and he scanned my face, as avidly, for a second, as he had conned the inkblots. There was a flicker of frown between his brows. “Can I do it over?”
“Sure.”
He put his pencil to the paper, held it still, and flashed me that look again. If I believed in telepathy, which emphatically I do not, I would have testified to the receipt of an urgent, “ Can I tell? ” Then he set to work.
I thought, as I watched him, how the human psyche, especially the ill one, cries out for contact and communication. George’s partial alexia—the inability to use the spoken word while he could write with such facility—was a