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| Expert Analyzes Handwriting |
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By Tom Marshall
Senior Advocate writer
Mary-Dean Phifer believes handwriting provides a window to what’s inside each of us.
Although one’s writing can change to reflect mood or attitude at any given time it remains distinctive, offering a glimpse into who we are and how we think, Mary-Dean, a Mt. Sterling handwriting expert said.
“Your writing is as individual as your fingerprints,” she said. “No two people write the same and it changes as you change.”
Mary-Dean, a retiree who moved to Mt. Sterling a year and a half ago, is a certified handwriting expert, otherwise known as a graphoanalyst.
She has studied handwriting for 18 years.
The former medical office professional first used her skills to screen prospective employees, but also provides personal analysis and speaks at seminars upon request.
Mary-Dean will present a free seminar, “You Are What You Write,” 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 19, at the Mt. Sterling-Montgomery County Public Library.
If the seminar is a success Phifer plans to offer a beginner’s handwriting course either at the library or Clay Community Center.
Mary-Dean said most people are surprised with how much they can learn from handwriting.
“The personality comes out as you put a pen and paper together,” she said. “Every time you write you draw a graphic picture of yourself.”
Getting started
Mary Dean said she has been interested in handwriting all her life.
Her son-in-law was aware of her interest and one day mentioned that he had a co-worker, Jim McGlennon, who analyzed handwriting. Mary-Dean said she pestered McGlennon until he offered an eight-step course which she attended in 1987.
What began as an effort to learn more about herself has grown into much more for Mary-Dean.
Her skills improved such that she was certified as a master graphoanalyst in 2000. As of 2001 there were 56,000 members worldwide in the International Graphoanalysis Society.
The first recorded study of handwriting was done by Aristotle about 400 years before the birth of Christ.
Graphoanalysis took its biggest step in the modern era in 1915 when the science’s founder, M.N. Bunker, recognized the personal nature of each writing stroke as he taught a shorthand class.
Bunker studied thousands of writing samples over the next several years and created the society in 1929.
Graphoanalysis focuses on the individual strokes in handwriting, which help determine personality traits. The society believes it shows how an individual feels about one’s self, how they think, their inner fears, depth of feeling and how they relate to others around them.
What it tells
Writing, the group believes, is just as telling as one’s body language, facial expressions and speech.
For instance how hard a person presses a pen to paper can tell Mary-Dean how much energy a person has.
Even the crossing of a person’s T’s can shed light, she said, on how a person feels about themselves.
Graphoanalysts call it “brainwriting” because it provides evidence of one’s personality, character traits and thinking processes.
Besides being used in the hiring process, the science is also useful to law enforcement, for compatability studies for couples and counseling of children and adults.
“It’s another tool a psychologist can use,” Mary-Dean said in reference to counseling.
She said teachers can learn a great deal about their students from studying handwriting and encouraged them to attend her upcoming seminar.
More than hobby
While the science started as a hobby for Mary-Dean it has grown into much more.
The former Lexington resident met her husband, Sam, when he came to one of her handwriting seminars there.
Yes, you might wonder, she gave his writing sample a bit more scrutiny than usual. From it she learned Sam had a big heart. They’ve been married 11 years now.
Together, the couple have also taken the science to an international scale.
They showed their skills on volunteer missions to Russia and Egypt in the 1990s. Mary-Dean tagged along wh
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