Body image,body symptoms and body reactivity in children

Relationship between Rorschach body boundary indices, physiological measures and body symptoms were investigated in children to further test the hypothesis that patterning of automatic responses is related to fantasies experienced about the boundaries of one's body. Two groups of 30 male children (6 and 8 years of age) were studied with the aim of finding out how early in the developmental sequence certain body image-body reactivity relationships found in adults appear.Barrier and penetration (body boundary indices scores and physiological data were obtained from testing the children. Symptoms were tabulated by interviewing parents. Results showed consistent relationships between body boundary indices and symptom sites analogous to the adult pattern. Relationships between boundary indices and automatic measures followed the adult pattern for age 6 but not for age 8.