Anaheim Graphoanalyst Wants a Little Respect

Just a few weeks ago, Peggy Hassis, 48, of Anaheim was asked her line of work. “Graphoanalyst,” she replied. The man stuck out his hand and wanted his palm read.

“I guess that’s why we’re still in a crusade phase,” said Hassis, who spent 18 months in a home-study course learning how to interpret people’s handwriting. “We’re trying to make ourselves credible.”

She and Jeanette Dunn of Fullerton, both of whom are master certified graphoanalysts, recently taught a course on “Introduction to Handwriting Analysis” at Orange Coast College. The classes, they feel, are one of the ways that handwriting analysis will become more of an accepted science.

It was around 1932 “that it seemed like everyone jumped in and became handwriting analysts,” said Hassis, “and the legitimate analysts suddenly weren’t being taken seriously. We’ve been fighting that reputation since then.”

It has taken a while, but the Chicago-based International Graphoanalysts Society, which has a patented method of analyzing handwriting, is making headway at gaining legitimacy through study groups, chapter meetings, local seminars and school courses such as the one she teaches, Hassis said.

The society says it has 10,000 analysts worldwide.

“What we’re telling people is that there are certain principles that tell something about the writer,” Hassis said, “and sometimes it takes four to five hours to fully analyze the writing of some people to get a full picture of them.”

A graphoanalyst for eight years, most of her jobs come from referrals although she has been hired by a couple of companies to analyze the handwriting of potential employees.

Hassis tells skeptics that “the proof is in the pudding,” when it comes to deciding if graphoanalysis works. “We can help employers hire the right people through our analysis and that goes for anyone who wants to get a better knowledge of themselves,” Hassis said. “There are 250 characteristics in handwriting that helps us document a person.”

The pen strokes, she said, tell whether people are argumentative, open, controlled, evasive, persistent, worried, withdrawn, self-conscious, stingy or ultraconservative, among many other character traits.

In fact, Hassis said, she has been so successful documenting handwriting that “my husband won’t even let me do his handwriting. He has the largest argumentative strokes of anyone I’ve seen.”

Art Enriquez, 22, found great joy playing Santa Claus at Christmas, and now he’s the Easter Bunny. “Art loved playing Santa,” said Marilyn Huff, of the La Habra Community Services Department, “and he’s looking forward to being Bunny Art.”

The city will charge residents $10 for a 10-minute visit from Bunny Art on April 17 and 18 and $15 on April 19, Easter Sunday.

“We had 200 Santa visits during Christmas time,” Huff said, “and hope we do as well for Easter even though this will be our first bunny visits.”

Children should read more, say Sally Mazza and Steve LaZarr, fourth-grade teachers at Jeane Thorman Elementary School in Tustin, so they devised an incentive reading program. The more books students read--20 is the minimum--the more points they earn to use as “money” at an auction to buy gifts sent by movie stars, athletes and other famous people.

For instance, Vice President George Bush sent a presidential pen; Actor Bob Newhart donated an autographed script; song writer Marvin Hamlisch sent autographed sheet music and ballplayer Doug DeCinces enclosed autographed pictures of himself.

Jockey Willie Shoemaker, singer Kenny Rogers, actor Chuck Norris and others sent items for the May 22 auction at the school.

Teacher aide Marcia Dunn, of Tustin, who helps the fourth-graders with reading, language and math problems, said she wrote 300 letters and got back 150 gifts for the auction. “We can already see how reading is helping students,” she said. “I tell them they can be anyone and go anywhere through a book.”

Those clever folks of the Saddleback Council of the Telephone Pioneers of America plan an Easter Egg hunt at Hart Park in Orange on April 10 for kids at the Orange County Blind Children’s Learning Center. They’re going to use beeping Easter eggs.