I heard it every day from my Chemistry teacher: “Mathew, you have to improve your handwriting - it’s illegible! I can’t make out the n’s from the u’s and the m’s from the w’s.”
I have to say, my handwriting looked quite neat and legible to me. There were several others whose handwriting is much worse. For instance, just look at Eapen, whose writing looked like a tangled mess of lines and curves!
Anyway, something about it always fascinated me about handwriting. I felt that there was a reason why everyone had a unique handwriting and why the “class clowns” always wrote with large, inflated letters and the introverted studious guys wrote with small, cramped up and timid letters.
Some three years ago, I was watching the movie Sherlock Holmes – you know the one with Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock and Jude Law as Watson. Sherlock takes the signature of Professor Moriarty and asks him if he was familiar with graphology, or the study of handwriting to uncover the personality of the writer. He then went on to describe the personality of Professor Moriarty – ingenious, excellent associative abilities but a complete lack of any moral sense and criminal tendencies.
Wow! So much from a person’s handwriting? I immediately looked up graphology, found a tutor and then started my study of graphology or handwriting analysis.
Graphology is a scientific study which originated some time back in France and is now widely used in European countries such as France, Germany, Italy and Spain for personnel screening, vocational guidance and in psychology and criminology. No, no it has nothing to do with the occult. A graphologist is not a psychic or a fortune teller!
Rather, graphology attempts to scientifically study handwriting in order to uncover various facets of personality such as intellectual and creative abilities, integrity, determination to succeed, communication skills, personal drive, productivity, aptitude, vulnerability to stress, defences, fears and inhibitions, to name a few. Being a cost-effective, accurate and valid personality assessment tool, around 80 per cent of the companies in France hire graphologists to aid them in personnel screening. Another advantage is that handwriting cannot be easily faked, unlike other tests where candidates are required to answer True or False questions or rating a statement on a scale of 1-5.
Being a handwriting analyst, also called a graphologist, I often hear the question, “But no one writes anymore… It’s all typing. What will you do when writing becomes obsolete?”
My answer is two-fold. One, I sincerely hope that handwriting never becomes obsolete. Two, if it does I wouldn’t be as worried about myself as I would be about your children and grandchildren. As the psychotherapist and graphologist Annette Poizner says, future generations, without handwriting, would have a weak right brain-left brain coordination, which would result in impaired memory power, Attention Deficit Disorder, more learning disabilities, underdeveloped fine motor skills and difficulties with expressiveness. I, on the other hand, would still be able to continue my job with other projective techniques.
Yes, there are several benefits to writing with our hands instead of typing. These include better fine motor skills, fluidity and ease of communication, memory skills and more developed adult-like neural connections, which cannot be developed by typing. The pen is mightier than the keyboard!
There is no “good” or “bad” handwriting. It is your personality…
mathew@mattemetrics.com
Author clarifies
I have entered into this field after having researched it thoroughly and after interacting with some of the most esteemed and reputed professionals in the field. I am aware that there are some sources which say that graphology has no studies to back it up, however, this is inaccurate.
A large number of research studies published in peer-reviewed journals demonstrate the validity and reliability of graphology. You can find some of these studies on the website of the American Handwriting Analysis Foundation ( >http://ahafhandwriting.org/research ) or on the website of the International Graphological Colloquium ( >http://www.igc-grapho.net/research-in-graphology ).
