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The House-Tree-Person test was used for psychodiagnostic evaluation of fifty female patients who presented themselves to a cancer detection clinic, but had not yet learned the results of their physical examinations, and a control group of twenty-five nonpatients. The initial postulation that the patients would more
closely resemble those who were regularly under treatment at a tumor clinic than they would the normal population or a similar number of psychiatric patients with no association to malignant disease was confirmed. Inferences drawn from the test results were that patients presenting themselves to a cancer detection clinic for the most part comprised a distinct group who were more than normally concerned with their own health and who revealed disturbances of body image associated with egocentricity, hypochondriasis, and anxiety. Further study is recommended to determine whether or not any change would result from the assurance that no malignancy existed and to determine whether some other test might be devised to offer a clue as to the fantasy site of the feared malignancy as well as the psychodynamic implications of such a fantasy.