Graphologist Andrea McNichol is nothing if not persistent. For
weeks, theeditorial staff of Psychology Today was virtually bombarded
with proposals, queries, and letters from her publisher on her favorite
subject-handwriting analysis. As a rule, we try to respond to queries
whenever they appear. It's equally true that, given the nature of PT's
editorial, we receive more than our share of unusual letters.
Bluntly, graphology doesn't get much respect-among academics or the
professional psychological community. So, despite the fact that Andrea's
resume' was impressive (she had studied graphology at the University of
Heidelberg and the Sorbonne; teaches a course on the subject at the
University of California; has given expert testimony in the examination
Howard Hughes's will and the Billionaire Boys Club murder; and was a
consultant on the Hitler diaries), we were inclined to go with
conventional thinking.
Nevertheless, we agreed to meet with McNichol, more out of
exhaustion than curiosity. Her presentation was clearly more interesting
than we would have thought, and some of us-after we'd had our handwriting
analyzed-were impressed: McNichol must have had a prior meeting with our
mothers in order to know so much about us. Here's an account of our
meeting; judge for yourself.
"Okay," McNichol began. "Why are we here? I'm here to persuade you
that graphology isn't a crock. You're here to listen. It's not going to
be easy because I know that you've grown accustomed to regarding
graphology as just a bit more respectable than throwing bones. But it's
all perfectly logical and understandable, once you have some basics under
your belt. For instance..."
She drew these examples on a blackboard:
"Okay, who is moodier, A or B?"
She knew the answer. We knew the answer. A dead person would know
the answer.
"Class!" she shouted at us. "Who is moodier?"
At once reduced to a group of confused but obedient
grade-schoolers, we replied in unison, "A".
"That's right. Thank you. Now, who likes to be in the middle of
everything?"
We smiled, nodded, glanced at our watches and hoped that things
would get more interesting very soon. McNichol stomped her foot until we
replied that, indeed, "B" feels more centralized.
"Okay boys and girls, now who's lying about his age?"
Unsure, we answered "B," though without exactly knowing why.
"Obviously," McNichol pointed out, "person B hesitated before
writing the number 36. Whenever you see an abnormally wide space between
two words, you know the writer lost spontaneity, but kept moving his hand
to the right. You have to ask yourself, 'Now why would someone stop
before writing his age?' Usually, we find it's because be's lying!
"Now let's try a tough one..."
"Based on these two memos, which jack is more likely to get a
raise?"
"A!" we shouted.
"Very good! We will automatically give stature to something we
think is important. Clearly, whoever wrote the first memo thinks more of
jack."
A few more of these perception teasers followed, until the editor
in chief broke in:
"Your point seems pretty clear to us, Andrea. What I personally am
curious about is why graphology seems to lack the credentials that would
allow it to be recognized as a 'hard science'? I know that before we
reviewed all the material for our meeting today, we had scarcely heard
graphology mentioned in the psychological community."
McNichol smiled. "I can see I've managed to sufficiently annoy you
all, but I promise that there is a reason for introducing the topic so
simplistically. Graphology is not taken very seriously in the United
States, yet much of the rest of the world finds it an indispensable aid
to discerning people's personalities and motivations." "Is the body of
scientists just dim-witted around these parts? What makes them hesitant
to give praise?"
"Primarily it's because, about 60 years ago, this country was
introduced to a simplistic offshoot of graphology called graphoanalysis.
This method maintains that sweeping physical and psychological diagnoses
can be made based on a simple examination of our individual letter
shapes.
"For example, I heard of a case in which a graphoanalyst diagnosed
a woman as having heart problems simply because she had a glitch in the
upstroke of her letter H. The analyst believed that, subconsciously, the
letter H produced anxiety in the woman, and that this anxiety was
manifested physically. Now, any science which claims to diagnose based on
such shallow observations is going to be discredited sooner or later, and
within a few years of its inception graphoanalysis was rejected as both a
physiological and psychological diagnostic tool, although unfortunately
it's still practiced today."
"Why did graphology develop differently-and is it really all that
much different from graphoanalysis? To be honest, suggesting that someone
is moodier just because his lines waver seems as simplistic as guessing
that a tremor on the letter H reveals a heart condition."
Tags:
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handwriting,
handwriting analysis,
hitler diaries,
howard hughes,
mental illness,
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sorbonne,
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university of heidelberg
