Attachment in Romantic Couples and Perceptions of a Joint Drawing Session

This study examined the postsession evaluations of romantic partners that engaged in a joint drawing task, which is a commonly used technique in art therapy. The shared nonverbal interaction between partners while drawing together is assumed to elicit tensions between closeness and individuality among the partners. To examine couples’ postsession evaluations and their associations to the attachment characteristics of the partners, each of 60 romantic couples drew on one shared sheet of paper and completed the Session Evaluation Questionnaire (SEQ) and the adult romantic attachment scale. As hypothesized, both attachment-related anxiety and attachment-related avoidance were negatively correlated with perceptions of the joint drawing session as smooth and positive. Women evaluated session depth as greater than did men, with the widest gap found in the insecure—insecure couple attachment combination. The importance of evaluating the divergent experiences of participants in a joint drawing session and the interpersonal dynamics in anxious woman—avoidant man couples are discussed.