Let us first be clear about what defines science. The prime method of empirical enquiry must be experiment and the successful replication of a given experiment conducted under laboratory conditions. Testing is the first and only acceptable program in the laboratory environment and its primary requirement is the absolute control over variables. Finally, the alignment between cause and manifest effect must not lend itself to variances in interpretation.
The vehicle we enlist to underline the scientific foundation of psychoanalytic constructs – in the main as manifest in Object-Relations perspectives – is not at all new. It has been available to therapists, essentially, since 1983, and certainly as a comprehensive discipline in psychological diagnosis since 2004. In April 2011, in languages other than English – Hebrew and Traditional Chinese – its application in child development was dramatically demonstrated. The vehicle is known as Psychodiagnostic Chirology, or PDC (the letters that will identify this diagnostic medium in the pages to follow).
To be sure, psychoanalytic intervention has long been viewed, fundamentally, as an art form even by its most committed practitioners. The reason for this is that inasmuch as the individual’s historical experiences constitute a schema of references to himself, or herself, these schemas are often marked by painful emotional scarring locked in pre-conscious developmental periods, invariably remaining unavailable to conscious recognition. The same schemas may include stressful and possibly traumatic experiences originating later in life but which are thoroughly repressed from memory or otherwise denied. As such, and inasmuch as they constitute the singular signature defining the etiology of a given neurotic condition in adulthood, the therapist can enlist only his or her intuitive faculties, clinical experience, educated guesses and sharp impressions with which to access these schemas. In most instances, when the issues do not include organic disorders, this knowledge would ultimately determine the core references and thrust of the therapeutic program. Nevertheless, identifying the etiology inherent in any neurotic condition must invariably remain a derivative of abstract conceptualizations.
Attesting to the intellectual and professional integrity of clinicians identifying with psychoanalytic programs is the fundamental recognition of the existence of these schemas – internal experiences of the world defining a very singular and altogether unique knowledge of its nature – and a full, unquestioned awareness of the hold they have on the individual’s mental and emotional constitution. The ambition of every therapist here, regardless of the specific course of therapy undertaken, would be to strive to have the client secure a level of alertness to, and a measure of identification with, the schema’s constituents. The hitherto subconscious “why”, with its host of rasping tentacles, may thus be moved to bond with the material “what.” The therapist would then strive to have this awareness provide the leverage that may help the client manage problematic issues and promote a successful resolution to the therapeutic undertaking.
At times these intuitive faculties, clinical experiences, educated guesses and sharp impressions unfortunately miss the mark. Often they are spot on. The point of these remarks, however, is the manifest professional and intellectual integrity these clinicians demonstrate by recognizing the profound weight and influence of these schemas. Inasmuch as scars and unhealed wounds are well insulated from conscious recall, their readiness to account for the unforgiving and often crippling emotional investments that they generate is what allows for the possibility of an eventual resolution of the neurotic condition.
Cognitive Behavioral principles bypass these schemas altogether. The schemas which later CB therapists came to accept from the start only lent themselves to a guided program of cognitive recognition and application. Their core position sees them not so much reject as ignore the degree to which largely pre-conscious emotional investments, invariably of an acutely troubling nature, insinuate and graft themselves into the client’s deeply buried and entirely subconscious references to himself, or herself. Their theorists and clinicians deliver a mode of intervention that would enlist the client’s willingness and preparedness to consciously adopt corrective thoughts and practices in the here and now surface of their lives. Essentially, the therapeutic program would be to enlist guided intellectualizations and rationalizations applied in a rigid, somewhat compulsive, formula format geared to bringing the individual to effect a desired conscious, and rather forced response to the neurotic circumstance. The experiences thus recorded, if consistent, would promote significant corrective conditioning that would alleviate, and hopefully overtake, disturbing and stressful emotional issues.
As a rule, Cognitive-Behavioral theorists are inclined to promote the study of their discipline as a legitimate science in the complex of the behavioral sciences. They introduce it as perhaps the only program which defines human behavior and a mode of clinical intervention that accepts only what lends itself to objective measurement and concrete observation. This explains the mind-boggling plethora of “laboratories” the professors and assistant professors have created at their universities. It’s their avenue to generous grants not to mention the promise of tenure. From their mountain of literature we would understand that their most notable successes include the management of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders, phobias, depression and anxiety related issues. They would extend this list to include psychoses and personality disorders. However, if we account for how these practitioners evaluate the success of their intervention these assertions become highly suspect. The numbers they offer notwithstanding, their evidence is largely anecdotal and cherry-picked. If corrective conditioning is not sustained beyond, say, two months, the intervention is not deemed to have failed. If a client fails to keep an appointment after the third or fourth session it is the client that is faulted for not contributing to the therapist’s program.
In response to extended criticism addressing the hard, coldly analytical and intellectualizing nature of Cognitive Behavior intervention, their theorists advanced the importance of investing the sessions with a measure of empathy. The attempt was to somehow lessen the distance between the therapist and the client. Essentially they reverted to Carl Rogers’ client centered format, wherein the therapist demonstrates recognition of the client’s contributions by confirming what he or she was sharing with them. Again, what we come upon here is an analytically defined formula applied as a rigid and entirely compulsive intellectualization of an emotional environment. However, whereas Carl Rogers gave enormous weight to the emotional significance in a client’s representation of his or her circumstances, Cognitive-Behavioral therapists normally suffice with a shallow acting out of such compassion. It rarely succeeds. When asked in a survey, only one in about twenty clients thought the therapist demonstrated some degree of empathy with them.
This issue, however, is not the focus of our immediate attention. It would suffice to merely observe that the presentation of Cognitive Behaviorist psychological constructs as a science relevant to the human condition is as pretentious as it is blunting to the intelligence. It remains, essentially, the domain of those demonstrating intellectually compulsive mindsets of a decidedly analytical and somewhat mechanical bent who unfortunately suffer the gross absence – certainly the poverty of any application - of abstract thought. As a rule, and with a ready apology to the few exceptions, equally flawed would be their emotional comprehension of intimate inter-personal communication. It is all part of the same package.
PDC is a comprehensive discipline in psychological diagnosis where biometric elements – specifically, the distal upper limbs – deliver the references to the human condition. The information is garnered from the morphology, dermatoglyphics and constitution of the hands. However esoteric this diagnostic discipline may seem to those encountering it for the first time, the concept of psychological markers being represented in a client’s hands is well supported in professional literature. One might also consider that the development of the skin, brain, nervous system and distal upper limbs originate simultaneously from an identical source in the fertilized egg cell – the ectoderm. Our references then to psychological expressions would in itself be wholly consistent with human biology. However it would appear that the most immediately significant support, particularly when addressing psychotic circumstances, originates with studies in the field of Psychiatric Biology.
PDC was not born in the wake of a sudden revelatory flash. Nothing resembling an epiphany was at all responsible for the discovery and development of this medium. Neither did it extend in any way from the popular culture of fortunetelling or the practices of mystics and gypsies. Perhaps it is not common knowledge, but by the middle of the last century hand analysis was an established, well-regarded and frequently applied diagnostic medium in medical genetics. It was a specialized study in most medical schools and an extension of the services offered in cyto-genetic laboratories attached to every major hospital. It was my belief that if hand analysis identified so wide a spectrum of genetic, inherited, and otherwise acquired disorders, how marvelous would it be if the same discipline might be used to the same advantage in the behavioral sciences. Without access to schema as shaped largely by subconscious and/or repressed memories – with the enlistment of rigid defense mechanisms such as intellectualizations and denial – what the therapist often elicits from the client rarely delivers the wherewithal for a focused program of intervention. Might this diagnostic discipline then deliver its sublime promise to the tool-box, as it were, of professional behavioral specialists? I expected that the singular advantage of this medium in clinical psychology would be the degree to which it would spare the client the need of having to represent himself, or herself, to the therapist. This might prove to be the swiftest and most certain way to access the most critical, and often the most painful and most damaging, references a person may have of himself – even when such are made wholly inaccessible to conscious awareness by any number of rigid, unyielding defenses.
In the behavioral sciences the scholarly contributions of Ernst Kretschmer and William Sheldon, who visualized the human body as representative of psychological constructs, set the foundations for what came to be recognized as Constitutional Psychology. PDC finds its natural place here. However, what remains obscure is the mechanism that would explain just how physical features of the body – in the main, those originating in the hands – can link to specific facets of personality.
There remains one other issue to consider with regard to the nature and contribution of PDC in the behavioral sciences. Without qualification, PDC proves that psychology is, in fact, a true science. This bears repeating: PDC advances psychological analysis to the station of a genuine and wholly authentic science. It promises perfect replication - testing under the strictest laboratory conditions - and would accommodate the nature of any population anywhere in the world. Reflecting psychoanalytic constructs in the framework of Object Relation perspectives, PDC exposes the references a person may have of himself originating from the very earliest pregenital stage experiences. If there is reason to reflect on stress experiences from day one, it will access day one. Those psychical quantities that define the etiology of a neurotic circumstance and would give the measure to their severity become immediately and powerfully exposed. In any and all individuals, when we come upon a specific psychical quantity linked to a specific feature in the hand, each of the people involved will exhibit identical patterns of attitude and behavior. There will also be a decided measure of similarity in their histories. Inasmuch as issues related to age and health and perhaps other psychical constructions may modify to some degree the manifest expression of any biometric feature, that feature will invariably remain indelibly marking that person, and a feature insinuating itself with a deterministic severity in that same person’s attitudes and behaviors. The accu-racy, moreover, would verge on 100%!
This, of course, is wholly new territory for the therapist. Moreover, as a corollary, the therapist will also come upon a most comprehensive spectrum of psychical circumstances including many syndromes and psychical systems that find no mention at all in professional literature. The distal upper limb delivers a unique, intricate and sophisticated language wholly relevant to the human condition. Fortunately it is a language which, with dedication, one can master. There will come a moment in time when the message in these lines will register even in academia, and actively promote the study of PDC for all those advancing to clinical careers in the behavioral sciences.
What follows are illustrations of hands each bearing a feature which exposes a specific stressful experience originating in the early history of their bearers. When accounting for the person’s response to this stressful experience each ultimately becomes manifest as a critical, often neurotic, dimension in the evolvement of the adult personality. Again, and without exception, whenever this feature is found in the hands of any individual anywhere in the world, however disparate the cultures, it will expose in that individual’s personality make-up much the same history and the entrenchment of the very same critically defined and often neurotic programs.
It should pose no problem for any clinician with access to a clientele, to test the veracity of the material that follows.