Is Handwriting a Clue to Suicide?
Everyone in the medical field would like to have a quick test to evaluate patients for suicide potential and a recent study would seem to indicate that graphology (the study of handwriting) has some usefulness. I am not convinced.
My studies both in school and at seminars I've attended over the years have pointed to indicators of neurologic problems found in handwriting, but not to suicide potential. In fact, I don't think anyone has put much stock in this type of "analysis" in terms of suicide or personality as it relates to handwriting.
One thing we can do is to perform a content analysis of someone's writings to see if certain themes emerge. These themes can tell us a great deal about what concerns or interests an individual and perhaps provide clues to future activities. So, taking a note someone has written, albeit a note that is several paragraphs long, not one sentence, may provide useful information. Certainly, I would be interested in the color ink used, the type of pen and the rate at which the person wrote. These would seem to point to a few personality characteristics.
Until I see more robust experiments in this area, I will put handwriting analysis in the category of phrenology where people made determinations about individuals based on the bumps on their heads, the shape of their ears, chin and the set of their eyes. I still find graphology to be pseudoscience just as phrenology was deemed to be despite its having been associated with one of the great minds of psychological investigation, Franz Joseph Gall. In mid-19th Century, scientists were also trying to find a quick and easy way to determine human behavior. They wanted to weed out "defectives" and criminals and saw this as a great boon to their efforts. It failed miserably.
So, graphologists of the world, let's see more science and provide some reasonable, scientific explanation for the results and I'll reconsider my stand.
Related Topics:
Technorati Tags: graphology, phrenology, handwriting analysis, suicide, mental health, health and wellness
My studies both in school and at seminars I've attended over the years have pointed to indicators of neurologic problems found in handwriting, but not to suicide potential. In fact, I don't think anyone has put much stock in this type of "analysis" in terms of suicide or personality as it relates to handwriting.
One thing we can do is to perform a content analysis of someone's writings to see if certain themes emerge. These themes can tell us a great deal about what concerns or interests an individual and perhaps provide clues to future activities. So, taking a note someone has written, albeit a note that is several paragraphs long, not one sentence, may provide useful information. Certainly, I would be interested in the color ink used, the type of pen and the rate at which the person wrote. These would seem to point to a few personality characteristics.
Until I see more robust experiments in this area, I will put handwriting analysis in the category of phrenology where people made determinations about individuals based on the bumps on their heads, the shape of their ears, chin and the set of their eyes. I still find graphology to be pseudoscience just as phrenology was deemed to be despite its having been associated with one of the great minds of psychological investigation, Franz Joseph Gall. In mid-19th Century, scientists were also trying to find a quick and easy way to determine human behavior. They wanted to weed out "defectives" and criminals and saw this as a great boon to their efforts. It failed miserably.
So, graphologists of the world, let's see more science and provide some reasonable, scientific explanation for the results and I'll reconsider my stand.
Related Topics:
Technorati Tags: graphology, phrenology, handwriting analysis, suicide, mental health, health and wellness
9 Comments:
If you provide an email address I would be happy to provide an annotated bibliography of handwriting analysis studies published in scientific journals. You may also be interested in contacting Mark Reddy, who did his master's thesis on whether it is possible to determine suicidal behavior from handwriting.
Sheila Lowe, court-qualified handwriting expert with 40 years experience in the field.
I am very interested on this and I know you are a prominent handwriting analyst.
Please, Sheila, could you point the referred studies?
Thank you.
Liana Mehmet-CMHA
La Paz - Bolivia
escri.viendo.mail@gmail.com
SCZOPHERNIC
most of the time you can tell that a baby is ok ok is if you have a Apgar score done 10 to 20 mintes after delivery. i think in sczophernics it is the same as to when a baby is born. for exsample baby's learn at a very fast rat,and kids not as fast. un like adults we think slower but we are smart becouse of our wisdom . during life we get stressed and have to fuces more.
at some point in a person's life this might couse deprivation of oxygen to the brain by geting stressed. when you are over stressed you some time cant sleep our thinking start's to in go faster and are brething might even start to slow down. just like hiper ventolating you pass out from to mouth oxygen to the brain. most people start to hiper ventolate becouse there thinking of some thing thats bothering them so they ether think to fast or to slow and at the same time you start hiper vantolating . when it's over there thinking starts to begin or slow down. and there bearthing starts to slows down. well it's the same with sczophernic but the complet oopiset. the physical and metabolic truma of having deprivation of oxygen to the brain and thinking or leaning well over a long time at the same time. will cause you to go in to a state of shock (brain shock). witch cause you to hallucination with seeing and hearing and even thought's. just like with a persons bearthing you think to fast that you get lack of oxygen to to brain. thats why when you give the meds that slow down the electrods in a sczophernic persons it helps them think better. severe oxygen deprvation to the brain over a long period of time depending on age of thinking level. will cause are brain's to go in this tipe of shock. you have to remmber the brain is still developing....this is my thoery...
For an old, but fairly comprehensive bibliography of graphology research, start at http://web.archive.org/web/20021212062939/www.eskimo.com/~hwa/bibliography/index.html
and work yoru way through the alphabet. All citations are listed by the last name of the first author.
xan
jonathon
Sorry, I didn't realize that URLs were broken. Combine the following four lines.
http://web.archive.org/
web/20021212062939/
www.eskimo.com/~hwa/bibliography/
index.html
xan
jonathon
Sure, Sheila, I'd like to see what journals published the studies, who did the research and what it found.
Send it to research9@mac.com and I'll review it.
Thanks.
Dear Dr.Farrel,
Please forgive my having the gall to extrapolate on your subject by pointing out the value and importance of analyzing the "handwriting on the wall," as it were, where it relates to the extreme high rate of suicide and post traumatic stress our soldiers face as a consequence of having served in the current Iraq War.
It seems to me that even a caveman is capable of deciphering and offering a cure based upon the handwriting on the wall in this case, and yet the current spin doctors in Washington, along with a significant percentage of their associates, can't seem to see the forest for the trees. They only respond in Rorschach and petroglyph. Does this make any sense to you?
Perhaps you would care to extrapolate further on this real world application of your topic, and/or explain from a therapist's point of view whether you view the current situation Iraq as a boon or a bane for your profession.
Also: based on my last three paragraphs, what would you say are my chances, or the current administration's chances, of committing suicide?
Thank you.
WORD
I assume you have never heard of my teacher, Karen Weinberg. A number of years ago, she saved the life of a young man who was seriously contemplating suicide. All by looking at his handwriting. She has been right on the mark each time with many clients. Handwriting is brainwriting. The hand is governed by the brain. http://www.chaiuniversal.org/Suicide.htm Check out our website for the details. U'liana de Shannon,
Director of Research, CHAI
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