- Hand Reading Mini-Course -

PSYCHIATRY - Schizophrenia: hand morphology, hand expression, thumb expression & Charlotte Wolff

INDEX (P1) - INTRO (P2) - HISTORY (P3-7) - DISEASES - (P8-13) - PSYCHIATRY (P14-25) - PSYCHOLOGY (P26-32) - CONCLUSION (P33-34)

hands

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Hand Diagnostics & Psychiatry:

hand morphology, hand expression, thumb expression & Charlotte Wolff

LEVEL 2: Hand morphology and schizophrenia.

So far the relationship between hand morphology and schizophrenia has been studied in about four well-known studies:

In the year 1928 Friedemann1 studied the hand morphology in a small sample of schizophrenic patients.

A few decades later Charlotte Wolff presented the book 'The hand in psychological diagnosis'2 - which includes one of the very few studies focussed on a large number of hand aspects. Wolff describes e.g. the relationship with a certain hand type called 'the elementair regressive hand' - which is reported to be frequently observed on people with a mental disability.

The handtypes which are usually most frequently observed on 'normal' people - the so-called: 'fleshy motoric hand' and 'the bony motoric hand' - were hardly observed on the schizophrenics studied by Wolff.

These observations made by Wolff 2 were confirmed in a 'double-blind' Israelian study executed in 1982 by Haft Pomrock & Ginath3.

The study reported e.g. that the hands of schizophrenics are characterized by a 'lack of hand expression' in the thumb and the complete hand. The 'lack of hand expression' related figures presented by Haft Pomrock & Ginath are presented in tabel C-2 en tabel C-3.

- Tabel C-2: Differences between schizophrenics and controls on: expression of back of hand.
- Rating:-------------------- 0-- 1-- 2-- 3-- 4-- N
- Schizophrenics ------ 20- 8- 22- 0-- 0- 50
- Control group -------- 0-- 0-- 1- 41- 8- 50
- Meaning of the 'Rating':
- 0 = lack of expression, no vitality;
- 1 = rigid epression;
- 2 = weak expression;
- 3 = vital expression;
- 4 = strong expression;
- P < 0.0001
- Tabel C-2: Differences between schizophrenics and the controls on: the thumb expression.
- Rating:-------------------- 0-- 1-- 2-- 3-- 4-- N
- Schizophrenics ------ 17- 12 11- 2-- 8- 50
- Control group -------- 0-- 0- 10 29 11 50
- Meaning of the 'Rating':
- 0 = lack of expression, no vitality;
- 1 = rigid epression;
- 2 = weak expression;
- 3 = vital expression;
- 4 = strong expression;
- P < 0.0001

NOTE: One might notice that these very impressive results are influenced by the fact that most of the studied schizophrenics were using medicine (neuroleptica). However, the expert researchers have declared that the 'lack of expression' in the hands of schizophrenics is likely NOT the result of the use of medicine.

Sources:

1 - Friedemann, A. (1928). Handbau und psychosis. Arch. F. Neurologie und Psychiatrie.
2 - Wolff, Ch. The Hand in Psychological Diagnosis. Methuen & Co. Ltd., London, 1951.
3 - Haft-Pomrock, Y. & Ginath, Y. (1982). Differences between schizophrenics and normal controls using chirological (hand) testing. Isr. J. Psychiatry. Relat. Sci., vol.19; no.1, p.5-22.

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Common used synonyms for hand reading are: palmistry - palm reading - hand analysis - chirology - chiromancy - chirognomy