Handwriting Analysis in Psychology is a very good book to understand how our real personalities show when the pen hits the paper. You can tell a lot about a person using graphology and perhaps your own self, by an educated examination of a good handwriting sample. This book was written from a forensic and scientific perspective, having nothing to do with palm reading and the like.

Deborah Dolen is author to 28 Diy type books, and finds Handwriting Analysis to be fascinating and a skill that has helped her in hiring decisions (handwriting naturally taken in context with many other factors) and even dating. Deborah Dolen studied handwriting analysis in forensics at USF [University of South Florida] before graduating from Eckerd College, in FL with a degree in psychology. Her main goal, before she ended up a prolific author, was to be a therapist and an effective one. Originally she simply desired to see if a patient was being honest with her, or themselves in a therapy setting. This is because some patients can “bull” for years and not really even want help—just attention of a therapist. In some cases, even the therapist for a long period of sessions does not understand they are wasting their time, or the real motives of the patient.

In her studies toward handwriting analysis the author was able to study primarily serial killers such a Bundy and a few others-learning they all had common traits of angular grandiose writing, as well as pasty and vicious. Otherwise the personalities she studied were quite charming to the average person.

Handwriting is very revealing, our brains subconsciously “letting it all hang out.” Handwriting can show for example, a person who claims to love kids-may actually not love kids at all. It may be just the opposite. Being able to get a sense for the person with issues is great for hiring a babysitter or child sitter.

Always, people project what they want us to believe. Everyone does it. But a keen eye with regards to what they subconsciously write on paper, can often cut to the chase. One, example, if handwriting slants backwards, and the writer is not left handed…well, it takes a lot of extra energy and intent to bother to slant backwards-so the writer could be extremely anti-social. That final determination would depend on other traits also. As you will see in the book, a profile is developed noting slant and other traits (that could cancel one negative trait out) and to look at a handwriting sample as a whole, as well as source a few hand writing samples from the same person if you want to be sure about a profile.

Handwriting analysis in psychology teaches you how to build a profile and go over many traits, with the goal of a summation at the end. The author has been able to use many various mediums to garner samples of people she really wanted to know about-such as greeting cards written to her, posters hand written, even church tithe slips when hand written can tell a lot about the person holding the pen. Some samples are not good, and ones written by people who are ill can be one exception. On the other hand, handwriting can show imminent illness at times, such as imminent heart attack. This can be seen, for example, using a magnifying glass and noting unusual skipping in a firmly written character. Alcoholism can also be seen, typically with a magnifying glass—the shaky strokes clear on a close look. Alcoholism is a frustrating disease that some people can hide very well for months or even years.

Handwriting Analysis is never an “answer all,” and never a means to label a person--but is a very effective way to be more sure of certain qualities, or to look at some areas harder. Everyone has good traits and bad traits, but which ones are emphasized in the hand writers life is made certainly obvious in handwritten communications.