Illustrative Examples of the Drawings

In this section, we present two illustrative examples of these drawings and explanatory narratives: one by an MHP who selected a new sheet of paper as the format for her integrative drawing, and the other by an MHP who selected the stress drawing as the format for his integrative drawing.

With regard to the stress drawing in Example 1 (drawing at far left in Figure 1), the MHP explained her drawing as follows: "I drew the emotional turmoil that I have been experiencing because of my concern over the safety of my family, including my children and grandchildren, family friends who are in active duty military service during the war, and my clients and staff members". These three groups of people are displayed in the three vertexes of the triangle that appears in the drawing, with the clients and staff members placed at the upper vertex, as noted in the words added to her drawing. With regard to the resources drawing (drawing at the center in Figure 1), the MHP noted the following: "I drew my home and family members, which I view as a major resource enabling me to better cope in stressful situations". With regard to the integrative drawing (drawing at the right in Figure 1), the MHP stated that "The drawing expresses my lessened feelings of emotional turmoil".

**Figure 1.** Selecting a new sheet of paper as the format for the integrative drawing.

Analysis of the compositional elements of her three drawings reveals substantial differences among them. As can be seen, the stressful image was represented by a single, primarily black, large object, placed at the center of the drawing, with no background. In contrast, the resources and the stress drawings are characterized by the use of several mixed-sized objects and lighter, "optimistic" colors. In terms of the transformed compositional elements of the stressful image within the integrated drawing, the MHP explained that "I had omitted the triangle representing the sources of my emotional turmoil and decreased the size of the stressful image within the integrated drawing". One can also see that she has moved the stressful image from the center of the page. This compositional transformation appears as an additional indicator of her lessened feelings of distress.

The stress drawing in Example 2 (left in Figure 2) initially included only the image of a man holding a huge ball. The MHP described his drawing as follows: "In this drawing the focus is on myself. The huge ball symbolizes the extreme stress and burden that I have been encountering during the war in multiple domains due to the need to address my family and clients' needs simultaneously". With regard to the resources drawing (right, Figure 2), he noted that "I drew the resources that usually help me calm down in stressful times: my home, family, music, and the beach". With regard to the integrative drawing (right, Figure 2), the MHP stated that "I have added my family and home to the stress drawing because they help me to cope with any problem or stressful situation that I encounter".

**Figure 2.** Selecting the stress drawing as the format for the integrative drawing.

Analysis of the compositional elements of the drawings in Example 2 also reveals substantial differences between the drawings. Whereas the initial stressful image was represented by a single large object with no background, the resources drawing is characterized by the use of several mixed-sized objects, scattered all over the paper. With regard to the integrated drawing, the addition of objects to the stress drawing enabled the MHP to alter the proportion of the stressful image within the drawing, as well as to situate it within his everyday social context. These compositional transformations reflected the decrease in his feelings of distress.

The two examples of drawings and themes emerging from the explanatory narratives presented above, which were evident in the explanatory narratives of the vast majority of participants, agree with the overall picture emerging from the descriptive statistics of the compositional characteristics of the three drawings displayed in Table 3.
