Prevent suicides: Watch how your child writes

Handwriting can be a dead give-away. According to handwriting experts, it can signal if you suffer from depression, and more importantly, if you have suicidal tendencies. In the light of the current spate of suicides, they claim it can be successfully put to use by parents and teachers to diagnose and help children who have suicidal thoughts.

Handwriting analysis, or graphology, is the science of producing a personality profile of the writer by examining the characteristics, traits and strokes of his handwriting. While a trained graphologist can read various nuances from health issues, morality, sexuality, past experiences, hidden talents and mental problems, an untrained person too can pick up certain signs and signals from an individual’s handwriting, say experts.

“Depression can be detected at an early stage in one’s handwriting,” said Mythili Ravi, a graphologist. “In suicide notes, you will often find the tendency of the writer’s sentences to slope downwards. This is known as the baseline drop,” she said, also noting that when a person cancels his signature or ‘mutilates’ his signature, or cuts the alphabet ‘i’, it is another indicator of low self-esteem.

“In schools, however, students use ruled notebooks, which might make it difficult for teachers to spot the baseline drop,” said handwriting expert Parag Khatri.

While psychiatrists agree that handwriting could be one of the indicators, it shouldn’t be the only parameter, they say. “While one’s handwriting does reflect one’s state of mind, it cannot be used as an absolute diagnosis. There are other physical indicators, such as changes in mood, emotion, behaviour, cognition, activities, sleep and eating pattern, etc which can be easily spotted,” said psychiatrist Dr YA Matcheswalla, head of department of psychiatry, JJ Hospital.

“A person with depression will show hesitance in writing, make minor mistakes in words, and how he spells them. A handwriting expert may be able to pick up these things,” said the psychiatrist. That is why the police force has handwriting experts on board to help them solve cases.

The therapy in graphology involves correcting the baseline. “But the immediate corrective action is counselling, helping the child overcome negativity, offering positive reinforcement etc.,” said Dr Arjun Pandit, a psychiatrist.