The Bag of Feelings: An Ideographic Technique for the Assessment and Exploration of Feelings in Children and Adolescents

This article describes the development of a new technique, the Bag of Feelings to help in the assessment of children's and adolescents' feelings. It is suggested that such an ideographic approach has advantages over more formal, standardized assessment tools because it enhances rapport, creates a unique communication concerning the individual's preoccupations and affective states and facilitates the production of clinical material. The approach is illustrated with clinical examples.