Did you know that if you cross your ”t`s” high on the stem, you`re someone with high goals-and if you slash so high that you miss the ”t”
completely, you`re a visionary?
Stop, stop! We`ve already committed the cardinal sin in discussing handwriting analysis: reducing the ”science” to a parlor game. You can`t just pinpoint individual characteristics on the basis of one idiosyncrasy, say the experts. This is a serious, professional business-as the 300 or so budding or certified Graphoanalysts who popped into the Drake Hotel last week would attest.
The occasion was the International Graphoanalysis Society`s 62nd Annual Congress and Institute, a six-day convention filled with classes and seminars on topics such as ”Stroke Significance” and ”Aspects of Loneliness.”
Graphoanalysis is the most widespread form of handwriting analysis. It is also a trademark.
The vast majority of the registrants, who paid $630 apiece, were women, often in their 30s, 40s or 50s (”Women are more intuitive. It`s a people profession, whereas men are more into facts and figures,” explained one conference leader). Some registrants were students on the road to
certification. Others were individuals who have used Graphoanalysis to gain insight into themselves and others. But the bulk were professional
Graphoanalysts, many of whom make a living consulting for companies that turn to handwriting analysis when determining the suitability of a job applicant.
Ding, ding, ding! The alarm bells ring. The idea of someone`s professional future hinging on the opinion of someone who measures the loops of ”l`s” is a bit scary. Certainly skepticism about the technique is widespread. But Graphoanalysts contend that they are merely providing a useful piece of reliable information.
”Handwriting analysis is really a helping tool,” said Lawrence Warner, a Graphoanalyst based in Bath, England, and this year`s International Graphoanalyst of the Year. ”It`s not to say this person is no good. It`s to identify that person`s strengths and weaknesses-how will he or she fit in?”
”We recommend that Graphoanalysis is never used as the sole criterion in a hiring process,” said society President Kathleen Kusta, adding that its applications extend to evaluating troubled students and assisting in therapy. ”We have people who work in conjunction with psychologists to provide the clinical person with another form of assessment,” Kusta said. ”We are not psychologists. All we`re trained to do is analyze the personality and develop the profile.”
Recording the history
The first attempts at handwriting analysis date from the mid-1800s, according to James Crumbaugh, an research consultant for the society and a retired clinical psychologist living in Gulfport, Miss. ”There was a French school and a German school, but neither had any scientific data to support their approach,” Crumbaugh said.
The French, he noted, matched pen strokes and letter formations with specific personality traits but missed the big picture. The Germans relied more on an intuitive overview of the handwriting but overlooked the details.
The man who turned ”different strokes for different folks” into a science was Milton Newton Bunker, a shorthand specialist who founded Graphoanalysis in the late 1920s. Crumbaugh said Bunker integrated the two previous approaches through years of experimentation in which handwriting characteristics were correlated with personality traits and were worked into a scheme in which the sum is as important as the parts.
The underlying theory of Graphoanalysis is that people actually reveal huge chunks of their personalities in putting letters together on a page.
”We`re all taught to write the same way, but we don`t, so there must be something there,” said Carol Kizorek, a Graphoanalyst based in Grass Valley, Calif. ”It`s a projective technique, like body language.”
Graphoanalysts look at about 100 aspects of handwriting to determine a similar number of traits. The slant, size and shape of letters are taken into account, as are the margins and spaces between letters, words and lines.
A Graphoanalysis worksheet categorizes traits under such headings as
”Emotions,” ”Mental Processes,” ”Forces to Achieve,” ”Fears,”
”Defenses,” ”Integrity,” ”Social Traits” and ”Aptitudes.”
For instance, Kizorek said the achievement forces can be broken into three categories: will power, which is most evident from the boldness with which one crosses a ”t”; determination, apparent in the length of the tails of ”g`s” or ”y`s” and whether they loop back up to the line; and goals, relative to how high a ”t” is crossed.
But, she added, these criteria cannot be applied casually. She requires at least 100 ”t” crosses on a page before she will draw conclusions.
Cross out the occult
A student can learn how to interpret the signs and become a certified Graphoanalyst through an 18-month correspondence course ($1,495) administered from Graphoanalysis Society headquarters in downtown Chicago. (The course is not accredited by any outside group.) An additional 18-month course can produce a master`s degree. Kustra said there are some 10,000 certified graphoanalysts worldwide.
Part of the instruction involves sending writing samples to the students for analysis. Kusta said the responses tend to be almost uniform, underlining the technique`s standardization.
”It`s very well established,” Kusta said. ”There`s a set of criteria in our training program, and it`s reliable.”
One time, she said, she sent a friend`s handwriting to the students, asking them what profession best suited her. ”The vast majority said she would be an excellent teacher, which she is,” Kusta said.
Upon becoming a certified Graphoanalyst, one must sign a code of ethics, pledging, among other things, ”to utilize my knowledge and full abilities to the benefit of my fellow men,” ”to present the facts-tactfully, without bias or censure,” and not to ”ally myself with any group dealing with the occult.”
Kusta explained, ”It`s a perception that a lot of people have that we are occult-that it`s a parlor game, that it`s a booth at a carnival.”
Graphoanalysts, she said, must respect their limitations: ”You cannot diagnose illnesses. You cannot predict the future. You cannot determine a person`s sex.”
Not even if there are little hearts above the ”i`s”? (Apologies.)
Given the automatic skepticism that often greets handwriting analysis, peddling it can be tough. ”The only way I`ve been able to market it is through referrals,” Kizorek said. ”It`s a very difficult service to sell.” But a healthy practice can provide a comfortable income. Warner was a high-ranking bank official before he switched to full-time Graphoanalysis. He said a complete report for a client costs 200 pounds, or about $350. Compiling several such reports a week would not be uncommon, conference attendees said. Kusta said the society compiles no figures on the number of businesses nationwide who use graphoanalysts, but estimated there were at least a thousand.
One Chicago-area businessman, Tom Klobucher, president of Thomas Interior Systems in Elmhurst, said he has been using a Graphoanalysis service to screen all potential employees for 15 years.
”I`ve grown over the years to depend on it, though I must say when I started with it I thought it was a bunch of hocus-pocus,” he said. ”I remember one time where they were saying this person was very argumentative and paid no attention to details, but I hired him anyway, and six months later I fired him for all the reasons they said.”
Klobucher said the analyses cost $100 per applicant and are a worthwhile investment. ”It`s an inexpensive yet very effective way to keep from making very expensive hiring mistakes,” he said. ”Today everyone is schooled in interviewing; they wear a mask that`s almost impossible for the average person to read unless you have some outside assistance.”
Klobucher`s use of Graphoanalysts extends beyond hiring decisions.
”Every few years I bring in our Graphoanalysis person, and they spend an hour or two with each of our senior managers and analyze their handwriting and give them suggestions on how to become more effective managers. They all enjoy it very much, and it`s a very positive experience.”
A federal erasure?
Although Crumbaugh contends that Graphoanalysis is as valid as a Rorschach ink-blot test, others are dubious.
”The Rorschach test has been studied for many decades by thousands of researchers, academicians and clinicians, and in many contexts,” said Paul Yarnold, a Northwestern University associate professor of medicine who specializes in psychology and personality. ”There`s a great deal of research in this area that does not exist for handwriting analysis.”
Yarnold noted a lack of journal submissions supporting handwriting analysis as an indicator of personality, and he condemned its use in the workplace.
”It`s not only irresponsible, but it`s probably going to be ruled illegal,” he said. ”If you can`t use a polygraph test, which has a long and distinguished history behind it, how can one use something that hasn`t been validated at least that well?”
Kusta acknowledged the possibility that Congress might consider legislation to outlaw the use of handwriting analysis in the workplace, justas it did with polygraph tests in 1989, but she and Warner defended it.
”For Graphoanalysis there are validation studies that have been published that have come out well,” said Warner, who is working on a study comparing the results of Graphoanalysis with a Myers-Briggs personality test, a series of questions widely used to determine personality types. ”It`s not something to be used by itself. The more you know about an individual, the less likely you are to make a wrong decision about them.”
Yarnold also complained that writer`s cramp, nervousness about testing, the type of pen and paper used and other variables are not taken into account. Warner countered that an English study of disabled individuals who write with their mouths, feet, crook of the elbow or the wrong hand showed that ”the personality still comes through.”
”It really should be called `brainwriting,` not `handwriting,`
” Kizorek said. ”It`s not the muscles in the hand; it`s the electrical impulse in the brain that directs the muscles.”
And it beats sticking a pen in your ear.
