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.

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• Handwriting and Parkinson's Disease
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Technorati Tags: graphology, phrenology, handwriting analysis, suicide, mental health, health and wellness

UPDATED: How much is too much news?

Note: This post has been updated to reflect

today's tragic events on the Virginia Tech campus.

News is a part of our lives and we do need to keep up on important events of the day. The question is, however, how much is too much news? Can we suffer from news overload?

I believe we can, especially when much of the news is centered on that old news dictum: What bleeds, leads.

In addition to being informative, news is stressful and, if you took your pulse or considered some method of gauging your mood after watching the evening news, what do you suppose you'd find? I think you'd find that you were more concerned about things you never gave a thought to, heard about far too many incidents of violence in even the sleepiest towns in the world, or wondered if you had the "disease of the week" or had eaten at one of "the dirtiest restaurants in the city." Who would ever want to go out to eat again if you thought there were major health problems brewing just past those swinging kitchen doors?

Having worked in a kitchen in a community mental health center where I taught clients to make things like lasagna for 45 or mashed potatoes for the same number, I know kitchens. A psychologist who knows kitchens? Sounds highly improbable, I know, but when you work in this field, it's part of your entree into it. So you drive a van, go out on emergency calls and peel vegetables in kitchens, if you have to, and you usually have to if you want to get that all-important field experience.

Our cook was a woman who had spent the better part of her adult life as a patient in a psychiatric hospital and her recipes showed her lack of exposure to even simple foods. But the one thing we all knew was that the local health inspector would be coming and either giving us or denying us our certificate of health inspection. We took classes in kitchen cleanliness, made sure everyone washed their hands and carefully resisted all efforts at rodents or other little critters that wanted to find a home in our stainless steel haven.

The theme of this blog segment? Think for yourself, know that you can ask to see the most recent health inspection certificate (which must be prominently displayed) and turn off the news for your own mental health when it becomes too much. Who needs all that news? I don't mean to sound like a Luddite, but you really don't need it all and you certainly don't need to follow some producer's lead in what is or isn't important.

Be your own person and it will be better for your mental health. Turning off the TV may seem like a small move, but to turn Neil Armstrong's famous phrase, it's one small step for you.

See what other's are saying within the WebMD Message Boards about the VT shootings and their tragic aftermath:

Pregnancy After Loss: VA Tech Professor Asks for Support

Parenting: 6 - 12 Months: "Is this what it's like to be a parent?"

Pregnancy: 3rd Trimester: Death Toll @ VA Tech is now 32!

Diabetes: Type 2 Support: Prayers for Virginia Tech

Technorati Taga: Virginia Tech, V Tech, Va Tech, Hokies, School Shooting, Va Shooting, V Tech Shooting, stress, news overload

Virginia Tech: Gunshots on Campus -- Again

We send our children to school each day and our older children go away to college to begin learning more life skills to prepare them for their careers, their futures and to have an opportunity for independence. We always expect that they will return to us safely, but that doesn't always happen. When it doesn't, as it won't for many families after the shootings at Virginia Tech University, our faith in their safety at school is shaken.

This isn't the first time we've seen this and it's not the first time we've seen it at a university. Who can forget the attack at the University of Texas at Austin when Charles Whitman climbed into the bell tower and held the entire campus prisoner? The Virginia Tech campus, too, has had its problems before; an escaped prisoner took refuge there and there were bomb threats in past weeks. I can imagine how the students must have felt, even if nothing else had happened.

What is the appropriate action for the school, the parents, the students and our country? No one has the magic formula, but one thing we do know is that going on with life, as before, won't be easy, but it's the only way to defeat the anxiety and stress being experienced. The trauma of the incident will not disappear, but how everyone responds will make all the difference.

Families are the primary support now and families must be included in any actions taken on behalf of the students. The strength they can provide for each other is not something that can be offered by schools alone.

Reassurance, not overreacting and maintaining calm is essential. The students may not experience any symptoms of stress immediately, but that doesn't mean that the storm is over. Counseling and learning how to use this situation in a positive way is also essential. I am a strong proponent of "good from bad" and I believe we will find some good here, too.

The main thing all of us want to know is what happened and what were the factors that set this deadly plan into place. Those answers are yet to come.


Join the discussion

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Technorati Tags: virginia tech

Trauma and Jury Duty

Staff Photo

How many of us have received that notice in the mail summoning us to jury duty and have sat for perhaps an entire day waiting to be called? Then, when it's almost the end of the court's work day, we are thanked and dismissed for another several years. At least that's been my experience, but I know that for some who are called and who serve on a jury, it's a totally different story.

Now, the trauma that is experienced by jurors and the price some pay for their service is being recognized by at least one state, Texas. Legislation, which would provide counseling for jurors or alternates after trials that are particularly disturbing or horrific, is currently being considered. The idea came from one victim's mother who thought not of herself, but of the men and women who served on the jury that heard the murder case of her deceased daughter.

Some judges, in their wisdom, have elected to make mental health experts available for jurors in high-profile traumatic trials, but it hasn't become law in any state, as I know it.

Do jurors suffer trauma? I don't think there's any question about it, just as there's no question that being in a war zone, suffering through the aftermath of a natural disaster or seeing a murder results in trauma that can be long-lasting. We call the disorder PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) because it isn't apparent immediately and may take months or, in some case, longer for the symptoms to appear. But the connection between both experiencing a trauma and viewing it second-hand can certainly be made because it's the emotion that is experienced which causes the disorder.

Let's hope this is the beginning of a new compassionate understanding of juror trauma.

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Technorati Tags: PTSD, trauma, crime, stress, anxiety