[In this page and in the following ones you will find several small images: clicking on these thumbnails new windows will open up, with in-depth treatment of the subjects or description of real cases]
In the past the study of an individual's personality by means of his handwriting was usually regarded with a great deal of scepticism. What was put in doubt was the very existence of a sound correlation between a single subject's distinctive character and his own personal way of writing (with its symbolisms).
Through the years, preconceived ideas and incredulity have little by little given way to reasonable persuasion, mostly as a result of several empirical validations and of scientific trials proving the actual relation between a given individual (with his psyche and soma unity) and his own graphic expression. As it happened for the genetics put forward by Mendel (whose studies stayed long neglected by the scientific community and only later on got finally inspected and validated, thus opening the doors to modern genetics), now graphology too is apparently experiencing freedom from long standing prejudices, thanks also to the progresses in the scientific studies linking the evolution of senile neurologic illnesses to typical patterns of handwriting deterioration. A new era is thus quickly approaching: that of scientific graphology. Actually in the everyday act of writing a note to a friend or in the formal signing of a document we all implicitly take for granted that that graphic representation, with its cluster of typical peculiarities, portrays in short just and exactly ourselves, thus setting each of us apart from any other person; if we gave no implicit acknowledgement to the univocal relationship between any individual person and his own handwriting, one would not understand the reason why we all daily attribute so great an identificative power to our signature as to entrust to that specific written symbol the testimony of authenticity of a contract, of a check, of a letter, of any whatsoever document; still this is what happens daily. In other words, if one would get to deny the actual existence of a real relation (with close interconnection) between an individual and his own typical handwriting, we should ask ourselves why each day millions of people carefully sign at the foot of a document, thus convinced of bestowing to that paper the distinctive brand of their own doing.
* * *
The study of a personality through the handwriting is a complex process, based on the survey and the integration of numerous graphic parameters. Some graphology schools are in the habit of examining more than 200 graphic indicators, this way collecting sound data useful to the organization of the personality portrait. Besides observing and measuring the various parameters, the information is revised under several perspectives and evaluated according to the multiple interconnections that surfaced; thus the overall picture slowly arises and the portrait emerges piecemeal. As it happens in the psychological field, the interpretative keys can be various, since various are also the facets of human personality. According to the possible interest in highlighting a particular feature of the subject's character, it can be suitable to integrate the raw graphological data through the perspective offered by a specific methodological angle; over the years there has been the tremendous evolution of multiple graphological evaluation pathways, with alternatives for the objective assessment of reality that range from a typically Jungian or Freudian point of view to approaches pivoting on strictly analytical observations or favouring a more comprehensive survey of the sample (the choice between one or the other approach obviously depends on the client's particular needs or on the requirements of the company interested in tuning-up its personnel management decisions). Once again, beyond the collection of raw data and the specific method elected to process and compound the information, what guarantees the best results is the analyst's experience, his continuous scientific updating and his professionalism. The instruments used for handwriting analysis are small portable microscopes (with magnifications up to 15-20 times the real object), measuring tools to establish the lengths and widths of the main alphabetical items, special transparency sheets to exactly calculate graphic indicators (with a resolution down to the tenth of one millimetre), scanners for superfine imaging of digitalized details and specific programs that speed up the comparison of the information clusters (thus helping in the detection of particular graphological 'dominants' or, conversely, in the assessment of critical contradictions within the concerned handwriting).
