Does your personality match a particular personality type? You can find out about personality types here.

Typologies

There are a number of Graphologists, particularly in Europe, who subscribe to what is known as the "typological" theory of personality.

Typology experts have a particular way of categorizing personality according to special guidelines.

There are several theories of typology but the main thought behind them is that most personalities can be categorized according to type – hence the word typology. In other words a personality can be classified as belonging to a specific personality group.

As can be expected with a theory of this nature, there is always a great deal of controversy.

Typology as a helpful guide

Anti-typologists are critical of using typologies to describe people.  They feel that people who use typologies are guilty of putting people into boxes.  

However, those who subscribe to typological theories argue that they in no way attempt to put people into boxes.  Typologies are purely to be used as helpful guides.

Be that as it may, there are a number of different schools of typology and some very important thinkers have subscribed to this line of reasoning.

Jung

Jung believed that people conformed to certain basic personality types and wrote a massive book to explain and support his theories.

He classified people into two main groups according to their personality attitudes.  In fact it was Jung himself who first used the words "introverts" and "extroverts" to describe these two attitudes.

Now to these attitudes he added 4 principal functions, namely sensation, thinking, feeling and intuition. He suggested that by combining the 4 functions with the 2 attitudes we would arrive at the most important personality classifications.

For instance you could be an introverted thinker; or you could be an extroverted sensation type. Then there was an introverted intuitive type and so on. All in all, if you juggled these about, there were 16 possible permutations or personality types.

When we apply this to handwriting you'll find that the handwriting of an introvert will differ widely from that of an extrovert.

While the handwriting of an introvert will conform to certain graphological patterns the handwriting of an extrovert will conform to a completely different set of patterns.

For more on Jung's personality types Ref: Psychological Types by C.G. Jung

Myers-Briggs

The typology of Jung forms the basis of the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator which is well-known among psychologists today. It also refers to 16 basic personality types and is widely used as a personality assessment tool.

Le Senne

Highly regarded among French graphologists was the French philosopher and psychologist, Le Senne. He created a typological system which divided people according to emotivity and activity. 

The emotive person is  someone who is easily moved by events - he shows a lot of feeling. The active person is one who translates everything into action - so that even his thinking is action orientated.

Le Senne combined his two classes of personality with people who were guided by primary or secondary responses. 

Simply put, this meant that they were either impulsive (primary) or they thought about things carefully before acting (secondary) (Ref: Character and handwritings by Emile Caille)