once again that writing comes not from our hand but from impulses in our brain.
Edgar Beerillon (1859-1948), a French psychologist and an authority on mental illness, found that written exercises could alter behavior in patients, thereby noting the relationship between the mind and writing. He called his study “psychothérapie graphique,” which eventually led to the study and practice of graphotherapy. Pierre Janet (1859-1947), a highly respected French psychologist who conducted many studies on the unconscious mind, became interested in and subsequently validated Berillon’s findings. This work led to further studies and testing at the Sorbonne. In the 1950s, hundreds of mentally disturbed children were treated through graphotherapy. And in 1966 Paul de Sainte Colombe (1891-1972) published Grapho-Therapeutics.
Klara Roman (1881-1962), a brilliant practitioner from Hungary, studied the conscious and unconscious energy of personality as depicted in handwriting, as well as the relationship between speech and handwriting. Roman devised the Psychogram, a measurement tool that compares writing with the character of the writer. She also brought graphology to the United States through classes at the New School in New York City.
Roda Wieser, a German graphologist, studied the handwriting of criminals and discovered basic rhythms that can show criminal tendencies, in particular, the slackness and the rigidity of the stroke.
Graphology didn’t make its way across the Atlantic until the early twentieth century. Many noted European graphologists, particularly those native to Germany, Austria, and Eastern Europe, immigrated to the United States and Israel during World War II, when the Nazis were in power. Their knowledge and contributions fueled interest in graphology on both continents.
In 1929 Milton Bunker (1892-1961), a former shorthand teacher from Kansas, founded the International Graphoanalysis Society (IGAS). He developed and standardized a system of handwriting analysis known as Graphoanalysis, which identifies basic handwriting strokes and relates them to particular personality traits (similar to the method developed by Michon a century earlier).
In New York, Felix Klein (1911-1994) founded the National Society for Graphology in 1972. His methods model the German Gestalt, or holistic approach to analysis, emphasizing the psychological interpretation of handwriting. Gestalt graphology requires years of rigorous training and is distinguished from other types of graphology because it takes a global view of handwriting rather than a letter-by-letter analysis. As an internationally respected leader of the Gestalt school, Felix Klein became interested in graphology at the age of thirteen. When later he and his siblings were interned in a concentration camp, Klein became fascinated by the similarities in the pen strokes he noticed among his fellow prisoners. The camp experience formed the basis of the work on the effects of trauma in handwriting, which he referred to as “directional pressure.” This indicates the bending of the spine (or downstroke) in certain letters, which would usually be straight, and reveals the writer’s anxiety over the present or the future. (When these prisoners were released and integrated successfully into the community, the spines of their letters subsequently returned to their previous form.)
Alfred Binet (1857-1911), the psychologist who developed the IQ (intelligence quotient) test, supported the findings of graphology and confirmed that certain character traits are reflected in handwriting.
Thea Stein Lewinson (1907-2000) in collaboration with Joseph Zubin (1900-1990) took a decisive step toward a more objective method of graphology in 1942. Zubin, a statistician and medical doctor at Bellevue Hospital in New York, tested the hypothesis of “finding a common denominator for evaluating the qualitative and quantitative aspects of handwriting.” Although it was based on the work of Ludwig Klages, this method goes on to investigate the vertical and horizontal movement in writing. The balanced handwriting movement lies between contraction and release.
Lewinson and Zubin then developed a system of scales, which they applied clinically to the handwriting of normal and abnormal individuals. Their painstaking efforts resulted in the establishment of ratings and measurements. After participating in the Lewinson-Zubin experiment, Rose Wolfson published her study of the handwriting of delinquents and nondelinquents. By analyzing twenty-two factors reflected in four lines of writing samples, she found significant differences between the two groups. Lewinson, Zubin, and Wolfson developed a scale determining a writer’s emotional control by means of geometric measurements and qualitative ratings.
DID YOU KNOW?
Albert Einstein wrote to Thea Stein Lewinson expressing his regard and fascination for the discipline of graphology, saying her analysis of the character of Adolf Hitler was far more revealing and insightful than his own perceptions.
Now in the twenty-first century, more and more businesses and individuals in the United States and other countries are realizing the benefits of using handwriting analysis, and the field continues to grow.
Art, Science, or New Age?
Many consider graphology both an art and a science. Interpreting the variables—separately and in totality—that constitute a handwriting’s style is an art. The skill and knowledge of the range of styles factor into that art as well. As a science, graphology measures numerous aspects of handwriting, then notes the similarities between the personalities of writers who share these traits. Over the last two hundred years, graphologists have diligently collected samples to back up their conclusions.
Eighty-nine percent of Swiss companies1 (compared to 67 percent that use psychological testing) and about 85 percent of French firms2 use graphology in making personnel decisions.
Graphology is an old, well-studied, and well-applied projective psychological approach to the study of personality. It was used before psychoanalysis, Gestalt therapy, and other methods were developed and honed. But somehow, in the United States, graphology is still often categorized as an occult or New Age subject.
While astrology, numerology, and other New Age practices are used to assess the nature and personality of the individual, and are often billed as tools for predicting the future, graphology is not a divination tool. It is grounded in psychology, and in fact has been taught in departments of psychology at universities in Germany, France, Spain, Israel, and Italy. The purpose of graphology is to examine and evaluate personality and character. Its use is comparable to assessment models such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (which is widely employed in business), or other psychological testing models. And while handwriting can provide insight into the writer’s past and current state of mind, abilities, and compatibility with others, it cannot predict when he or she will meet a soul mate, accumulate wealth, or find peace and happiness.
As a method of personality assessment, handwriting analysis has been validated by centuries of research from major universities and independent studies worldwide. Though graphology is sure to meet its share of skeptics, its use has been taken seriously years by many scientists and psychologists, and, most important, by some of the largest and most renowned corporations and government agencies in the world, such as the Warburg Bank in London, General Motors, Renault, the FBI, the CIA, the Israeli Secret Service (Mossad), and Scotland Yard. In 1980 the Library of Congress changed the classification for graphology books from the “occult” section to the “psychology” section, officially moving graphology out of the New Age.
Graphology Today: Its Uses and Applications
In the early part of the twentieth century, graphology was
