Clinical Aspects of the Loney Draw-A-Car Test: Enuresis and Encopresis

Abstract

This paper is a clinical introduction to the Loney Draw-A-Car Test (LDACT), illustrating its usefulness with a small sample of enuretic and encopretic boys seen diagnostically in an outpatient child psychiatry service. The development and format of the LDACT are described, and its primary advantages as a projective technique are presented. Similarities and differences among LDACT protocols for the enuretic and encopretic cases areoutlined; it is noted that enuretics show phallic defensiveness, vulnerability, and loss of control in their LDACT responses, and the encopretics show anal-compulsive defensiveness, vulnerability, and loss of control, along with analretentive pride. Psychiatric literature bearing upon the dynamics of enuresis and encopresis is cited in connection with the LDACT findings.