Signature for Success. Arlyn J. Imberman

The History of Graphology in a Nutshell

       Beware of the man whose writing is always like a reed in the wind.

      — CONFUCIUS

      From prehistoric times, when early man began painting on cave walls through Egyptian hieroglyphics and to the early alphabets of the Greeks and Romans, there has always been interest in the relationship between the art of writing and the character of the writer.

      Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, observed that writing styles were as unique to each individual as his or her speaking voice. He even studied the link between the writer and his handwriting.

      The Roman historian, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus noted that Emperor Augustus Caesar did not separate his words well on paper, which implied that he was unwilling to let go of money, material things, and his own feelings.

      Camillo Baldi (1550-1637), a physician and educator, and dean of the College of Philosophy at the University of Bologna, published a treatise in 1625 called Trattato come de una lettera missiva si conoscano la natura, e qualitá dello scrittore (How from a Missive Letter One May Know the Nature and Qualities of Its Writer), which explored the relationship between handwriting and personality.

      Two hundred years later in Paris, the priest and scholar Abbé Flandrin (1804-1864) and his student Abbé Jean-Hippolyte Michon (1806-1881) devoted much of their lives to the study of handwriting. Michon subsequently published papers on his system of handwriting analysis, which detailed how specific elements or “signs” (such as strokes and individual letterforms) correspond to particular personality traits. He coined the name graphology to describe this study. This term and his method became widely known and accepted. Michon is also credited with stimulating widespread interest in graphology in both public and academic circles, and he was the founder of the Societé Français de Graphologie, a leading institute that still exists.

      Another Frenchman and student of Michon’s, Jules Crepieux-Jamin (1858-1940), took his theories one step further. Instead of individual “signs” corresponding to specific personality traits, he believed that handwriting should be examined as a whole and that its interpretation should be dependent on other features. He divided the basic elements of handwriting into seven categories: dimension, form, pressure, speed, direction, layout, and continuity. Crepieux-Jamin’s approach became the basis of the French school of graphology. It also became influential in the field of psychology and laid the groundwork for the Gestalt approach to handwriting analysis.

      Toward the end of the ninteenth century, the Germans jumped on the graphology bandwagon and began making their own contributions to the field. Wilhelm Preyer (1841-1897), a professor of physiology, compared the handwriting of individuals when, the hand, the foot, and even the mouth held the pen. Preyer noted marked similarities in the form and structure of each sample and concluded that “hand” writing is really “brain” writing, because it is centrally organized in the brain. The process of mentally or physically visualizing letters and then transmitting that information to the sensory and motor areas in the brain that control our motor skills is what creates our writing form on paper. This insight has been confirmed by our knowledge that people who have had a stroke see their handwriting as seriously impaired, whereas those who have a hand prosthesis can eventually recover their handwriting skills. Another German psychiatrist, George Meyer, discovered that moods and emotions account for subtle changes in handwriting. These revelations of Preyer and Meyer inspired other psychologists and scientists to become interested in graphology.

      Around the turn of the twentieth century, Ludwig Klages (1872-1956), a philosopher and graphologist, and author of Die Handschrift als Gehernschrift, applied Gestalt theory (Gestalt meaning “complete” or “whole”) to his studies, broadening the scope of graphology. He is thus responsible for founding the German school of graphology, which looks at the whole of a handwriting sample rather than equating an individual stroke with a particular trait. Klages also introduced students of graphology to the concept of rhythm in writing (i.e., the ease with which the writer expresses the contraction and release in the writing pattern and stroke on the page—whether it is stilted or spontaneous, and shows fluidity in the implementation of the letters). Klages coined the phrase “form level,” which refers to the overall pattern of the writing by its style, symmetry, simplicity, legibility, creativity, good movement, and rhythm. He also concluded that handwriting is a balance between the conscious and unconscious aspects of our nature. This view could be compared to music in terms of rhythm, harmony, and psychic balance.

      In Switzerland, Max Pulver (1890-1953), a professor at the University of Zurich, studied Klages’s work and applied the psychological methods of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud to handwriting analysis. He classified handwriting into three “zones”—upper, middle, and lower—each corresponding with a distinct area of personality (similar to Freud’s discovery of the superego, ego, and id). Pulver also introduced the symbolism of the space on the page—the meaning of the left and right sides of the page, as well as what the width or narrowness of the top, bottom, and side margins means.

       DID YOU KNOW?

      Famous people who were fascinated by the hidden language of handwriting include Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Carl Jung, and Albert Einstein. They made accurate observations about people in relation to their handwriting.

      Other contributions in graphology were made by Robert Saudek (1880-1935), a Czechoslovakian who conducted experiments on the speed of handwriting, and Rudolph Pophal (1893-1966), a professor of neurology in Hamburg, Germany, who studied how the brain affects written strokes on a page and introduced the concept of tension and release in handwriting. As a neurologist, Pophal studied brain functions and conducted research on the physiological side of handwriting and behavior, confirming once again that writing comes not from our hand but from impulses in our brain.

      Edgar Beerillon (1859-1948), a French psychologist and an authority on mental illness, found that written exercises could alter behavior in patients, thereby noting the relationship between the mind and writing. He called his study “psychothérapie graphique,” which eventually led to the study and practice of graphotherapy. Pierre Janet (1859-1947), a highly respected French psychologist who conducted many studies on the unconscious mind, became interested in and subsequently validated Berillon’s findings. This work led to further studies and testing at the Sorbonne. In the 1950s, hundreds of mentally disturbed children were treated through graphotherapy. And in 1966 Paul de Sainte Colombe (1891-1972) published Grapho-Therapeutics.

      Klara Roman (1881-1962), a brilliant practitioner from Hungary, studied the conscious and unconscious energy of personality as depicted in handwriting, as well as the relationship between speech and handwriting. Roman devised the Psychogram, a measurement tool that compares writing with the character of the writer. She also brought graphology to the United States through classes at the New School in New York City.

      Roda Wieser, a German graphologist, studied the handwriting of criminals and discovered basic rhythms that can show criminal tendencies, in particular, the slackness and the rigidity of the stroke.

      Graphology didn’t make its way across the Atlantic until the early twentieth century. Many noted European graphologists, particularly those native to Germany, Austria, and Eastern Europe, immigrated to the United States and Israel during World War II, when the Nazis were in power. Their knowledge and contributions fueled interest in graphology on both continents.

      In 1929 Milton Bunker (1892-1961), a former shorthand teacher from Kansas, founded the International Graphoanalysis Society (IGAS). He developed and standardized a system of handwriting analysis known as Graphoanalysis, which identifies basic handwriting strokes and relates them to particular personality traits (similar to the method developed by Michon a century earlier).

      In New York, Felix Klein (1911-1994) founded the National Society for Graphology in 1972. His methods model the German Gestalt, or holistic approach