Using children's autogenic stories in dynamic clinical assessment

This article explores the usefulness of autogenic or stimulus-independent stories as an instrument for the dynamically oriented clinical assessment of children. Although children's projective stories have long been used in psychodiagnostic and therapeutic work, stories elicited from children during clinical assessment have generally been nonautogenic in nature. It is argued that children's autogenic stories can provide valuable information about the child's personality, conflicts, and defensive accomodations, and in a manner analogous to the adult client's first dream told in treatment, can serve as a sort of life narrative for the child.