House-Tree-Person is a projective personality test, wherein a person responds to a given stimuli, and the responses give clues about the person's hidden emotions or internal conflicts. The individual taking the test is asked to draw primary objects like a house, tree, and a person; that's why the name. These drawings render a measure of self perceptions and attitudes inherent in a personality.
The HTP test is adhered to, along with other techniques, in cases where there is likelihood of brain damage, other neurological disorders, or to evaluate brain damage in patients of schizophrenia.
It can be taken in any language by anyone who is 3 years old or above. The test consumes around 150 minutes. The person taking the test is first asked to draw, and then is later questioned based on his/her illustration. Usually, the first phase of drawing is colored using crayons, and then pencil is used for the next phase. The instructions given to the test-taker are quite short and simple. "Draw me as good a house as you can", states it well. Once the picture of a house is completed, the test-taker is asked to draw a tree, and later a person.
If we are told to draw some object, we might either shy away (for not being good at it) or we might enjoy the process itself (regardless of our artistic abilities). Whichever way, drawing gives us a sense of revisiting our childhood memories full of such fun activities.
Similar to writing, the act of drawing forms a powerful medium for us to let our emotions out. As we know, and some of us might even have experienced, that forms of fine art, including drawing, are seen to be stress-releasing activities. Off the mind and onto the paper. This is the knack behind a psychological personality test like the House-Tree-Person test. It is like reading our minds from what we have scribbled or sketched on a sheet of paper.
This test is a technique developed by John N. Buck, an early clinical psychologist in 1948, which was later updated in 1969. This, and such other contributions from him are remarkable.
