Graphology, which is a faithful revealer of the psyche and the personality, gave birth to graphotherapy, which postulates that some work on writing can help transform the psyche and behavior. You will discover in this article what graphotherapy is, its principles, its history, its benefits, the course of a session, how to become a graphotherapist as well as the contraindications.

The scope of graphotherapy was originally dysgraphia (writing disorders which result in relative illegibility) and certain behavioral disorders in children. It therefore consisted in re-educating the writing in order to make it more readable and easier to achieve.

Today, graphotherapy and more particularly symbolic graphotherapy are growth tools for adults and adolescents.

So much so that in Europe, we do not consult the graphotherapist only because we have a writing problem, but also for emotional or behavioral disorders.

The main principles

The theory behind graphotherapy builds on discoveries concerning the right brain and the left brain. Although human language and all the semantics that support it fall under the left hemisphere (associated with rationality), the handwriting gesture also appeals to the right hemisphere (associated with intuition and irrational). Indeed, it approaches drawing, artistic gesture, and it involves a host of unconscious bodily and psychic reflexes. Therefore, through handwriting, one could come into contact with a part of his psyche which is usually subconscious.

Thus, the analysis and observation of his own writing would make it possible, for example, to bring back childhood memories at the origin of various emotional or psychic dependencies, or to lift the veil on little-known aspects of his personality. Subsequently, by transforming your way of writing and using various graphic exercises, you could, by a kind of feedback, act on your psyche, and consequently change harmful attitudes or behaviors. The classic example, and of course a little reductive, is to strive to intentionally and consciously place our T-bars higher, which would help us adopt a more determined and confident attitude to face our daily challenges.

Graphotherapy has many benefits, however, there does not seem to be any scientific study that has validated its effectiveness.

Treat dysgraphia problems

Graphotherapy aims to help children with dysgraphia problems. These children, especially boys, quickly come to suffer from learning difficulties. This has the effect of giving them feelings of failure and lack of self-confidence, and can lead to behavioral disturbances. They are often intelligent, brilliant, sometimes gifted children. For them, the illegibility of writing often stems from an emotional shock experienced in the family circle during infancy.

Re-educate writing

The rehabilitation does not relate directly to the writing itself, but rather to the drawing of some fundamental forms (loops, cuts, hoops, helices, etc.). It is simply a matter of working on flexibility and ease in the gesture. As fun as possible, we aim to relax the gesture, breathing, perceptions and sensations. Subsequently, we learn to hold the pencil well, to adopt a good body position during writing, in short, we try to relax the child so that he enjoys writing.

Know each other better

Graphotherapy can be used for better self-knowledge and to free the psyche from obstacles that can hinder its development. This approach is therefore also intended for people who want to know themselves better and identify the obstacles that limit the realization of their full potential.

Treat addiction issues

According to its practitioners, graphotherapy could help to free oneself from inappropriate attitudes or behaviors, in particular from various addictions such as attachments to harmful ideas or emotional dependencies.

The graphotherapist

The graphotherapist is a professional who can practice in private or in public. It will help the individual to better hold his pen, to better position himself and to acquire good bases with the help of playful exercises. Comprehensive, his role is to re-educate his patient by taking into account his personality and his sensitivity.

Course of a session

In classic graphotherapy: the first meeting usually happens with the child and his parents. During this, the graphotherapist will assess the subject and establish contact. In principle, it is the child who decides (or accepts) to enter therapy at the end of this interview of approximately 2 hours. This will be followed by a series of weekly sessions which will be spread over a period which may vary from 6 to 10 months.

Symbolic graphotherapy: during the initial meeting, the person writes a text and studies the analysis tools of symbolic graphotherapy. Thanks to these, she will now be able to identify in her writing the recurring feature (s) (we call them totem signs) which constitute the true graphic signatures of what is hidden in her unconscious. Through various graphic exercises, we will try, for example, to modify the angle of the letters, to add roundness to them, or to practice writing with the left hand for right-handed people and with the right for left-handed people, history to restore the balance between the two hemispheres of the brain.

Become a graphotherapist

There are several schools of graphology and graphotherapy. As a rule, the trainings consist of writing rehabilitation courses, clinical psychology and drawing interpretation. They can be done in school or by correspondence.

Contraindications of graphotherapy

Graphotherapy is aimed at children, adolescents and adults who wish to correct their handwriting or begin a process of personal development. However, this discipline is not a technique of intervention in the event of acute crisis or psychosis.

As early as the XNUMXth century, we were interested in what handwriting reveals about those who write. According to the philosopher Théodore Ribot, “writing, like other gestures, being under the direct dependence of the brain, varies with the permanent or temporary states of the personality”. During the first half of the XNUMXth century, Jules Crépieux-Jamin developed a technique for graphological study which formed the basis of modern graphology. This technique is used in particular for making psychological diagnoses, personality analyzes, staff selections and forensic expertise.

It was in the second half of the 1960th century that graphotherapy appeared, an approach advocated by psychologist and graphologist Robert Olivaux as well as doctors, educators, psychologists and neurologists. In the XNUMXs, some researchers studied in particular the difficulty some children presented in transcribing handwriting. Their research led to the creation of clinical graphotherapy, whose practitioners are now grouped within the International Professional Group of Clinical Graphotherapists (see Sites of interest).

Along with working with children, various therapists have attempted to apply the concepts of graphotherapy to the general population, especially in the United States. In the French-speaking world, Dominique Vaudoiset, French graphologist and psychotherapist, was one of the pioneers of this approach. She has developed a technique called symbolic graphotherapy, which integrates elements of neurolinguistic programming (NLP), transactional analysis, brief cognitive therapies, Jungian psychoanalysis, etc. into classical graphotherapy.