7.4 Bridge, Road & Draw-A-Person-in-the-Rain Projective Drawings
Key Takeaways
- The Bridge Drawing was published by Hays and Lyons in 1981 with the directive to draw a bridge from someplace to someplace, and the client then marks direction of travel and their own position.
- Hays and Lyons identified twelve formal image variables including directionality, placement of the self, solidity, bridge attachment, and the matter depicted beneath the bridge.
- Michael Hanes published the Road Drawing in 1995 as a metaphor for continuous life process, and it is used most heavily in addiction treatment and crisis stabilization settings.
- In Draw-A-Person-in-the-Rain the rain represents external stress and the protective gear represents coping resources, with revised rating scales developed by Willis, Joy, and Kaiser in 2010.
- All three are structured projective techniques with published observational variables rather than psychometrically standardized tests, and reports must state that limitation.
Three Named Instruments on the Blueprint
Domain 3 names every assessment the ATCBE may test. Three of them share a structure — a single, deceptively simple directive that externalizes an internal process onto a spatial metaphor — and are grouped here: the Bridge Drawing, the Road Drawing, and Draw-A-Person-in-the-Rain. Each is brief, requires almost no materials, and is used where transition, trajectory, or coping is the clinical question.
The Bridge Drawing
Developed by: Ronald Hays and Sheri Lyons, published in The Arts in Psychotherapy in 1981.
Directive: "Draw a bridge from someplace to someplace." After the drawing, the client is asked to indicate with an arrow the direction of travel and to mark with a dot where they are on the bridge.
Rationale: A bridge is a spatial metaphor for transition — connecting two states, spanning a gap, and carrying a traveler over something. Hays and Lyons identified twelve formal image variables used to organize the review.
| Variable | Clinical question it raises |
|---|---|
| Directionality | Which way is the client moving — toward the future, the past, or nowhere? |
| Placement of the self | On the near side, mid-span, far side, or absent from the bridge entirely |
| Places named | What the client identifies as origin and destination, in their own words |
| Solidity of construction | Whether the structure could plausibly bear weight |
| Attachment of bridge to ground | Whether both ends actually connect to land |
| Matter depicted under the bridge | Water, chasm, traffic, fire — what is being crossed over |
| Emphasis through reinforcement or erasure | Where anxiety concentrated |
| Consistency of the drawing | Internal coherence of the structure |
| Viewpoint and perspective | Drawn from the side, from above, or from the traveler's position |
| Axis and tilt | Stability of the whole composition |
| Presence of other figures | Whether the crossing is solitary or accompanied |
| Overall detail and elaboration | Investment in the task |
Clinical uses: discharge and transition planning, adolescence, recovery milestones, immigration and relocation, bereavement, and treatment-termination work. The Bridge Drawing with Path variation, developed by Olena Darewych, extends the task toward future orientation and goal representation.
[!IMPORTANT] The single most clinically loaded feature is whether the client placed themselves on the bridge at all. An omitted self, a self standing at the edge, or a bridge unattached at the far end are all observations worth a question — never a conclusion.
The Road Drawing
Developed by: Michael J. Hanes, published in the American Journal of Art Therapy in 1995, with an interpretive manual, Roads to the Unconscious, following.
Directive: "Draw a road." The instruction is deliberately minimal so that every structural decision — where the road begins, where it goes, what interrupts it — belongs to the client.
Rationale: Where the bridge represents a discrete transition, the road represents continuous process: the road of life, the course of an illness, the trajectory of recovery. Hanes originally worked with substance-use and acute psychiatric populations, and the instrument remains most heavily used in addiction treatment and crisis stabilization settings.
| Feature observed | Discussion it opens |
|---|---|
| Road type and surface | Paved, dirt, broken; how supported the journey feels |
| Direction and endpoint | Vanishing point, dead end, circular route, road leaving the page |
| Obstacles and barriers | Roadblocks, washouts, forks, hazards |
| Signage and control | Stop signs, speed limits, one-way markers — internal or external control |
| Companions and vehicles | Alone on foot, in a vehicle, with passengers |
| Crossroads | Decision points the client can name |
Clinical uses: relapse-prevention work, early recovery, crisis observation units, life-review with older adults, and reentry planning. A common therapeutic extension is to invite the client to continue the road in a second session, which converts an assessment into a longitudinal narrative.
Draw-A-Person-in-the-Rain
Origins: A projective variation on the Draw-A-Person task, refined through the scoring work of Verinis, Lichtenberg and Henrich (1974) and, in the contemporary art therapy literature, by Willis, Joy and Kaiser (2010), who related the drawing to the Coping Resources Inventory for Stress and the Perceived Stress Scale using revised rating scales for stress and protection indicators.
Directive: "Draw a person in the rain."
Interpretive logic: The task splits into two readable components:
| Component | Represents |
|---|---|
| The rain — amount, intensity, direction, presence of storm elements | External stress and environmental pressure |
| The protection — umbrella, raincoat, boots, shelter, or their absence | Coping resources and defensive structures |
| The person — size, posture, facial expression, position relative to the rain | The self under load |
Heavy rain with no protection suggests a person experiencing high stress without perceived resources; elaborate protection under a light drizzle suggests defenses disproportionate to the current demand. Both remain hypotheses to explore verbally, not findings.
[!WARNING] All three instruments in this section have limited normative data compared with the DDS or the PPAT/FEATS. They are best characterized as structured projective techniques with published observational variables, not as psychometrically standardized tests. Assessment reports must describe them that way, and no diagnostic or forensic conclusion should rest on them.
Comparative Summary
| Bridge Drawing | Road Drawing | Draw-A-Person-in-the-Rain | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Origin | Hays & Lyons, 1981 | Hanes, 1995 | Projective DAP variant; Verinis et al., 1974; Willis, Joy & Kaiser, 2010 |
| Directive | "Draw a bridge from someplace to someplace" | "Draw a road" | "Draw a person in the rain" |
| Core metaphor | Discrete transition between two states | Continuous life process and trajectory | Self under environmental stress |
| Primary clinical question | Where is the client in this transition? | What is the course, and what obstructs it? | How much stress, and what coping is available? |
| Signature added step | Arrow for direction; dot marking the self | Optional continuation in later sessions | Separate reading of rain versus protection |
| Typical settings | Discharge planning, adolescence, bereavement | Addiction treatment, crisis units, life review | Intake screening, stress and coping evaluation |
| Psychometric standing | Twelve published image variables; limited norms | Published interpretive manual; limited norms | Revised rating scales; limited norms |
After completing a Bridge Drawing, a client is asked to add one further element before any discussion begins. Which additions are part of the standard Hays and Lyons administration?
A client in a 23-hour crisis stabilization unit produces a Road Drawing showing a paved road that ends abruptly at a cliff edge, with no vehicle and no figure present. What is the appropriate clinical use of this observation?
On a Draw-A-Person-in-the-Rain, a client depicts torrential rain with lightning, and a small figure with no umbrella, coat, or shelter. Applying the interpretive logic of the instrument, what hypothesis does this generate?
An art therapist is writing a court-requested report and wants to cite a Bridge Drawing and a Road Drawing as primary evidence of a parent's readiness to resume custody. What is the correct course of action?