Can you change your personality by changing your handwriting?

Are you looking for a way to change your life? Try changing your handwriting!

Graphoteraphy is a branch of graphology that aims to modify your handwriting in order to make improvements in your personality. Graphology, on the other hand, is a procedure of analyzing and assessing the personality of a person through the physical characteristics of his or her handwriting.

Richtoffen Dela Cruz, a clinical psychologist, revealed how the two terms can help you become the person you desire to be in his recent guesting in Mars Pa More.

The study of handwriting

“Writing is both an assessment and a therapeutic tool for everyone,” Dela Cruz established.

According to him, “If you want to know the character of a person, you can check his or her way of writing. That is a procedure that we call graphology.”

Before he started, he emphasized that graphology is not the only method to measure the personality of a person. In fact, he said, “This is just a way, a tool.”

Stance of letters

The first step in evaluating the writing of a person is to look at is the stance of the letters.

“If, for example, the letters are more leaning towards the left, these are more of what we call emotionally restrictive individuals. These are the people who often think but do not usually feels. This is a person who uses his or her mind.”

“Form follows function,” he simplified.

The ideal stance, he stated, follows at least a 90-degree perpendicularity to the paper.

“Actually, we have a ruler for that purpose which we can place on the name of the person to see how much angularity is there,” he added.

On the other hand, if the stance of the letters leans towards the right, “It just means that you are more of an emotional rather than a rational person.”

The clinical psychologist then connected handwriting to mental health. He explained, “What we need to understand is that in terms of our mental health, it's the adaptability that dictates your normality.”

“It's not good if you keep using your mind, and the same goes for if you are always full of feelings. So, it's always a combination of both that will tell you that you are more of a functional individual,” he added.

Handwriting angle

Second, check the angle of the person's handwriting. Is it straight? Is it going up? Is it going down?

Dela Cruz enlightened, “Actually, it's just more of the what we call temperament.”

“Meaning, if it's upward, you're more jolly! Which is positive. You are happy in that moment. The sad thing, however, is if you see the handwriting of your friend going downwards,” he said.

He then gave an explanation for that, “The reason it goes down is that the person cannot sustain the amount of energy needed in writing. And as we know in terms of depression, for example, or having a negative mood, your energy is significantly affected by that.”

Size of letters

The third step gives importance to the size of the letters, particularly the first one in proportion to the next.

“People who have a big ego, or the kind of people who always puts themselves first rather than others, they write the first letter with a size that doubles or triples the size of the next letter,” he detailed.

“Believe it or not, our personality shows in critical situations. Because in normal situations, we can always try to have a backup or a façade of who we are,” he further explained.

Find the loops

Fourth, look at the letters that have loops below.

“Now, if the loop is big, that tends to be more of either your aggressive tendencies or your inflated emotionality,” he said.

“So, for example, if the letter 'Y' shows a bigger round loop than the [top part] - it's more of emotionality.

“Those who do not use a round loop, are worse because they have aggressive tendencies.”

Graphoteraphy

Dela Cruz clarified that graphology is “just the half of it.”

He mentioned, “Writing can also be used as a therapeutic tool in order for you to have a catharsis whenever you're not feeling well about yourself.

“Especially if you experience serious problems like psychological trauma, we have a method called the Continuous Writing Method.

“The main premise is that you will distract yourself with writing as you remember something so horrific with yourself. The distraction that you do now, will then try to dissolve the memory from your consciousness.”

As of now, Dela Cruz said that “Certain researches are still being done on that. But it has already started to be given as a tool to people who suffered from a typhoon or other considered traumatic events.”

The clinical psychologist recommends writing before you sleep, “So, if you feel frustrated or let's say you feel so tired, you feel so heavy with your day, you can write. You can write before you sleep.”

In a nutshell, that's what journals are about.

“As we do writing, we have a very conscious application of what our thoughts are. What happens then is we also have a clarity of the relationship of things around us," he ends.