ABSTRACT
Projective and expressive assessment includes such techniques as drawing, storytelling, and sentence completion. Although projective and expressive assessment techniques are often at the center of a storm of controversy regarding reliability, validity, and appropriate uses, there is no question that these techniques continue to be popular among many clinicians. A review of the professional and scientic literature on projective-expressive assessment does not easily lead to a consensus regarding the current state of the art. On one hand, many researchers and clinicians who are concerned with assessment of children and adolescents view projectiveexpressive assessment techniques as an important feature of the clinical training of graduate students. This view is based on the notion that these techniques may offer a unique window into an individualized idiographic assessment of the “inner life” of children and adolescents. On the other hand, projective-expressive assessment has a small army of very vocal critics who view this area with disdain and rightly point out that the reliability and validity of many of these techniques fall short of professional standards as well as other forms of social-emotional assessment.
