What is Handwriting Analysis


                     What Handwriting Analysis Is

  • It is a projective technique like body language which can profile human behavior in the areas of social skills, thinking styles, achievement/work habits, and possible ways of dealing with stress.

  • It is a system of studying the frozen graphic structures which have been generated in the brain and placed on paper in a printed and/or cursive style.

  • It is a way to compare different personalities and their potential for compatibility in the areas of problem-solving, interpersonal skills, how they would fit into a team situation, and how they will react under pressure.

  • It is a method to view the emotional development of an individual relative to maturity and consistent actions.

                 What Handwriting Analysis Is NOT

  • It is not fortune telling or associated with the occult.

  • It is not predicting the future other than describing possible future behavior and/or actions.

  • It is not a panacea for solving all the problems involved in high turnover found in the work place.

  • It is not to be utilized for invading the privacy of a person. In job related profiles, the only traits addressed have to do with the requirements of the position.

        by Carol Kizorek-Eastwick
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A Historical Perspective on Graphological References and         Validation Studies

That handwriting is brainwriting is undebatable -- that handwriting has a physiological/ psychological link in the brain established decades ago by extensive European research is understood by surprisingly few outside the handwriting community in this country. Yet, this concept underscores why handwriting's movement patterns across the page can be analyzed.

Just five people, Dr. Rudolph Pophal (Germany, neurologist/graphologist), Klara Roman (Hungary, psychologist/graphologist), Robert Saudek, (England, psychologist/graphologist), Dr. Werner Wolff (Germany/America, psychologist), and Dr.Alexander Luria (Russia/physiologist), collectively contributed some 130 years of individual research. Nearly lost in the midst of time, this research established handwriting's physiological/psychological link in the brain over 50 years ago. This foundation is also the basis for the use of handwriting as a remediation educational technique to train the brain to gain impulse control.

How can such an incredible anomaly exist? A look back in time to the early part of the 20th century reveals conditions that fostered it. During the general time frame when such extensive research was underway in Europe, America was caught in the deep clutches of Behaviorism. Founded by John Watson and B.F. Skinner in the 1920s, Behaviorism controlled most psychology research in this country for nearly five decades. Founded on the tenet that consciousness was such a troublesome concept to ascertain and terming the brain "the little black box", he refused to deal with aspects of consciousness in research. It was simply ignored for decades. Consequently, this left a large research void, a black hole, in this country in that little European research has been replicated here. Thus many millions of professionals are oblivious to handwriting's deeper implications.

Below are just a few of the seminal research projects that established handwriting is brainwriting, with descriptions as provided by Marc Seifer, Ph.D.

  • (1882) Crepieux- Jamin, J. Hysteria and Handwriting. Handwritng and Expression, London: Kegan, Trench and Trubner. The examination of forty-five handwritings of hysterical persons revealed... in 24 instances... marked agitation and the abnormally large movements of the pen. (p211)
   
  •  (1895) Preyer, W. On the Physiology of Handwriting. Hamburg. Preyer established that similar styles can be achieved when the pen was held by either right or left hand, foot or mouth, thereby establishing that handwriting was centrally organized by the brain and not the appendage.
   
  •  (1901) Meyer, G. Die Wissenschaftlichen Grundalgen der Grapholgie, Berlin. A systematic study of factors of handwriting correlating with specific characterological features of identity was conducted, e.g., artificality, spontaneity, slant, size, simplifiction, elaboration, propensity toward roundedness, angularity. etc.
     
  • (1919) Downey, J. Graphology and the Psychology of Handwriting, Baltimore: Warwick and York, Inc. Bipolar expressive characteristics such as fluent or jerky, impulsive or deliberate were examined in twelve individuals in their handwriting, carriage, and expressive gestures, using 11 judges. Above chance correlations were achieved.
    
  • (1926) Saukek, R. Experiments With Handwriting. London: George Allen & Unwin. This 395 page text is devoted to the ascertaining of objective criteria in handwriting. e.g., determining the relative speed of handwriting, developmental changes in the execution of the writing trail from childhood to adulthood, the role of the central nervous system, etc. Footnotes and detailed bibliography included.
    
  • (1933) Allport, G., & Vernon,P. Studies in Expressive Movement. New York, NY: Macmillian. This treatise contains numerous controlled experiments which discovered a congruence between expressive movements (e.g., handwriting, gestures, gait) ... and attitudes, traits and values (pp.247-248).
    
  •  (1939) Jacoby, H. Uniqueness and handwriting. Analysis of Handwriting. London: George Allen & Unwin. Two hundred samples were studied for one letter, the "i". After careful analysis, no two strokes were found to be identical. The full 200 samples are provided.

  •  (1944) Lewinson, T.S., and Zubin, J. Handwriting Analysis: A series of scales for evaluating the dynamic apsects of handwriting. New York. Using objective criteria, the authors were successfully able to differentiate between the handwriting of delinquents and non-delinquents.
    
  • (1948) Wolff. W. Diagrams of the Unconscious. This masterwork explores a full range of experiemental studies. 'The expressive movement in writing (especially the signature), is made chiefly in a state of unawareness, automatically and impulsively... These unconscious movements represent a reign of order, proportion and configuration, appearing in the same exact way as if they had been consciously calculated, measured and constructed...(p.151) (They) originate neither in change nor in conscious intention, but (rather)... they reflect unconscious principles of organization (p.177.)" Included is a bibliography of 474 graphological studies.

       by Jeanette Farmer, C.G.

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                                                          Some Definitions
                                       Categories:

Holistic Graphology:

This approach starts by registering an intuitive reaction to the script, based on an overall appearance of the script. It then deduces an individual's type, and uses that for the resulting graphological report.

The Psychogram is probably the best known system of handwriting analysis, that falls within the approach of Holistic Graphology.

Integrative Graphology:

This approach starts by registering what the characterstics of the script are, and building a graphological profile from that.

Graphoanalysis is the best known system of handwriting analysis that falls within the approach of Integrative Graphology.

Symbolic Analysis:

This approach looks at specific elements within a script, and assigns to them various meanings, depending upon whether the macro-script is being looked at, or the micro-script.

Max Pulver's _Symbolik Der Handschrift_ is probably the best known work, that falls under this approach. This approach does provide the theoretical basis, for the other two approac

Categories and GraphoAnalysis definition (below) supplied by "Jonathon Blake; The Graphology-L FAQ"

                                    Definitions:

                              TM
GraphoAnalysis   (gra.fo.a.nal'a.sis)

The system of handwriting analysis as taught by the International Graphoanalysis Society (IGAS).

Library of Congress classification index heading:

PSYCHOLOGY

Graphology  (gra.fol.le.ji)

The study of handwriting and its revaluation of personality facets and character traits through slant, pressure, etc. The manifestation through writing of patterns of thought, emotional discipline, energy and enthusiasm, curiosity, independence, imagination, manual dexterity, hidden aptitudes and natural abilities.

The term "Graphology" was coined by Abbé Hypolite Michon in 1871.

Black's Law Dictionary Revised Fourth Edition Page 846

Handwriting

The chirography of a person; the cast or form of writing peculiar to a person, including the size, shape, and style of letters, tricks of penmanship, and whatever gives individuality to his writing, distinguishing it from that of other persons. In Re Hyland's Will, 1 Gib 41,58 St.R. 798, 27 N.Y.S. 961, 963.