AHAF 2017 50th Anniversary Conference 

Rachel Blomstrom, BA, MFA      "Appealing to the Younger Crowd"

An artist, musician, performer and writer, Rachel came to graphology fairly recently. She brings a unique perspective to the question of how to interest young people in handwriting in the digital age and how to attract future Handwriting Analysts.

Cynthia is certified by AHAF and IGAS. She has served as president and vice president for the New England Society for Handwriting Analysis. In her other lives, she taught for many years in the behavioral sciences, has maintained a private counseling practice specializing in trauma. She is pastor of the Whately Congregational Church.

Cynthia’s talk centers on Post-traumatic Stress through the Lens of Handwriting Analysis. Post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD is a much-used diagnosis in today’s society. But what is PTSD and what are its origins? How might PTSD be identified through handwriting? Can handwriting analysis be used to identify changes as an individual heals from PTSD? 

Ruth is court-qualified as an expert witness in Federal, State and local courts. She has appeared on CBS News, Discovery, CNBC, BBC, Canada AM, Court TV and Dateline/NBC. 

Sheila has a master of science degree in psychology and was certified by AHAF in 1981. She is a published writer and lecturer, she is court-qualified as a forensic handwriting expert.

Are there differences in the analysis of printed writing versus cursive? This talk will examine how the two types of graphic expression are similar and dissimilar. 

Macjob is a pharmacist by training at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. He was a brand manager of Cardiometabolic Medicine, Novartis Pharmaceuticals English West Africa CEO, Macdiptoy Consulting Limited, a company that teaches skills in Non-Verbal Intelligence.  He has facilitated in many corporate organizations such as PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Axa Mansard Insurance as well as government agencies.

Writing impulses are generated from the brain before traveling down the nerves to the muscles of the fingers.  Any substance capable of influencing the brain, that affects writing, should be considered closely. As graphologists, our assessments regarding personality of clients have to be top notch. Certain medications do affect the handwriting of individuals.  It is imperative  for us to be aware of some medications that can affect how the client writes, and what we write about the client. 

Theresa grew up in Caracas, Venezuela and moved back to Indiana at the age of 13. Fluent in Spanish, she spent 20 years as an on-call Spanish Court Interpreter for City, County, Circuit, Superior, Federal and Juvenile courts. 

Lena Rivkin is vice president of the Southern California chapter of AHAF. Lena provides graphology analyses for Fortune 500 companies and international business clientele to screen applicants and employees. 

Artist and graphologist Lena Rivkin analyzes the handwriting of influential painters from Edgar Degas to Frida Kahlo. Behind the Brush explores several artists’ handwriting for clues to the psychological underpinnings that drove singular, iconoclastic minds to express themselves with paint and canvas. The presentation will include handwriting samples as well as slides of each artist’s work. 

Join us as Graziella Pettinati walks us throught the process of the the interesting "Umbrella Test" that works well for with Graphology! First developed to test children, by Belgian graphologist Tatiana DeBarelli in 1990's, the Umbrella test is very useful addition to handwriting analysis for teens and adults, too.  She will demonstrate on you, and then walk you through the process of detecting perception of difficulties and defense mechanisms.  Graziella is a delightful French Canadian graphologist from Quebec, and has years of experience with working with art interpretation and children.

Gayna puts her 30 years of corporate Sales, Marketing and Business Development skills to work with Campaign for Cursive®. She continues to search out opportunities with companies and people to help expand its scope. Gayna hails from Boston and spent most of her business life in San Francisco. Now she lives in Tucson with her husband, Doug and little bichon, Chillie. 

Graphology was recognized nationally by the Mexican government on Dec. 4, 2012, through an agreement with the Technical Committee of the National Council for Standardization and Certification of Labor Competencies.

Roberto will discuss the success in engaging with National Security Agencies based on Scientific Graphology. His talk will demonstate how this Standard has served as a model for some South American Countries, that also seek recognition from their government for Scientific Graphology, and how these reciprocal agreements could benefit graphologists in the United States.

(SOMEGRAF — Sociedad Mexicana de Grafologia Cientifica/Mexican Society of Scientific Graphology). 

Donna is a clinical psychologist with almost 30 years of treatment and assessment experience. She is the director of a large mental health practice in the Boston area and a consultant to a health insurance company. 

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is an innovative treatment approach that was developed in 1993 by Marsha Linehan. It is a broad based cognitive behavioral treatment which was originally developed to treat chronically suicidal borderline patients. It is now used broadly in psychotherapy. Dr. Whipple has been practicing DBT since its inception in 1993. In this unique presentation, she will provide an overview of DBT as well as explore how this framework can be useful for graphologists in their efforts to understand their clients. She will demonstrate techniques and present cases with corresponding handwriting samples.

Jane is a crisis clinician for emergency departments at St John’s and Woodwinds Hospitals. She teaches clinical social work at Walden University.  Jane serves on the AHAF board as  Research Chair.

Jane’s presentation will describe the changes in speed and accuracy during continuous tracing and drawing skills occurring between the second grade (7 and 8-year-old students) and 6th grade (11 and 12-year old students). The exercise used in this original research is a series of connected e’s to simulate cursive writing without the additional cognitive load of spelling or meaningful expression and to maintain consistency across samples. Changes in pressure, speed, and accuracy will exhibit the development of underlying perceptual and motor skills for connected (cursive) handwriting.

The presentation will be of interest to those interested in handwriting skill development in children (and perhaps in forgers as well!)

Heidi is a past president of AHAF and president of the Tucson Chapter. The managing partner of Spectrum Forensic International, LLC, she is a court-qualified and board-certified forensic document examiner. 

Tricia is co-owner of Mostly Books in Tucson and has served on the AHAF board in various positions. She hosts the monthly Tucson Chapter meetings and has studied graphology and the Enneagram extensively.