CLINICAL GRAPHOLOGY

Book excerpt: Faced with challenging economic times, contemporary clinicians require assessment tools which can accelerate the therapeutic process and facilitate brief psychotherapy. This text introduces graphology, or handwriting analysis, which has been used clinically in Europe for decades alongside other projective techniques. In Clinical Graphology: An Interpretive Manual for Mental Health Practitioners, this clinical application becomes accessible. The text provides a compelling rationale for the clinical evaluation of handwriting and demonstrates how therapists can access rich personal data by examining clients’ graphic behaviors. The text is designed to systematically present clinical graphology in theory and practice. A review of the literature demonstrates that the clinical use of graphology is consistent with the tenets of clinical practice. Graphological interpretive theory is presented in detail, providing a theoretical understanding of those graphic features which are meaningful indices of psychological phenomena. In this context, the inherent congruity between graphological and psychological theory is explored. Diverse handwriting samples, including many of contemporary public figures, illustrate graphic phenomena while demonstrating and encouraging the graphologist’s unique type of visual acuity. To facilitate the reader’s ability to synthesize graphic traits into a holistic personality profile, an interpretive schedule is provided which summarizes graphic indices and their interpretations. A method of assessing handwritings is provided which permits a degree of standardization and so facilitates research. Using this text, readers can integrate graphological theory and cultivate interpretive skills. Providing a comprehensive treatment of the psychology of handwriting, this volume includes a discussion of caveats which guide the clinical use of graphology as well as research considerations and guidelines for sharing graphological findings with clients. To date, clinicians in North America remain unaware of the merits of graphology usage although they continue to seek out methods of assessment which will facilitate their clinical efforts. This volume will demonstrate graphology as a tool which can be applied by those with virtually any theoretical orientation or practice model, speaking to the interests of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, art therapists, vocational counselors, pastoral counselors, and naturopaths, and paraprofessionals.