Psychodiagnostic Chirology in Analysis and Therapy

[MWare]

I stumbled across this site today and had a pretty good laugh:

http://www.pdc.co.il/

I wasn't familiar with the term chirology. I wasn't even able to find it in Skepdic. Is this a new term, or just an uncommon one? From the homepage, it is made clear what they're talking about.

Anyway, the thing that really got me laughing was this evidence of the accuracy of the methodology:

The hand of Osama bin Laden shows him to be a refined and highly sophisticated intellectual. This is not the hand of one we might guess could be a crude or base mass murderer. There is nothing inherently shallow or even sinister about this man. This is a hand we would normally find among the respected leaders in any community of people. He would be quiet, modest, and unassuming - altogether a manner which would belie his intellectual and emotional vitality.

http://www.pdc.co.il/binladen.htm

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Just a fancy woo word for palm reading.

 

[Dancing David]

This is from the introduction, the lab tests are not even laughable.
http://www.pdc.co.il/papers1.htm

Wholly unrelated to palmistry or any similarly esoteric mode of prediction, Dermatoglyphics, for more than half a century now, has been accepted and applied in cyto-genetic laboratories in almost every major hospital around the world as standard diagnostic procedure.

Another interesting phenomenon is the nature of the dermatoglyphic patterns in the palms of the hand which seem very much to duplicate electromagnetic fields. In fact the fingertip patterns (the fingerprints) can often be duplicated using a simple bar magnet under a sheet of paper and iron filings. If we consider the source of electrical activity in the body we may once again connect between the hands and the brain.

Where Psychodiagnostic Chirology shines, as it were, is in its ability to trace, virtually from the first hour of life, the most significant formative experiences which may have overtaken the individual. These would have been experiences (often decidedly traumatic) which would have profoundly influenced the attitudinal and behavioral patterns which normally give the design to the adult personality. Yet because of the very early phase in this person’s development these experience(s) would have been lost to conscious awareness. At the subconscious dimension, however, these same experience(s) would have become ingrained as though by a hammer and chisel in stone.

So it is that those proficient in PDC speak of the Deficit-Father Syndrome which describe circumstances in the child’s relationship with his, or her, father (between the ages of 1 to 3) wherein the child did not record the experience of his father identifying with him , or the father integrating the child’s life with his own, or experiencing intimacy with the father. Inherent in the Deficit-Father Syndrome is also the person’s inevitable compensation for these deficits… compensation which bring many to win public recognition and, in many instances, fame.
The language of Psychodiagnostic Chirology makes reference to the Hollow-i Syndrome (a pervading sense of emptiness and lack of fulfillment); the Focus-On-Me Mother Syndrome (failure to record narcissistic support and gross inability to assume true adult responsibilities especially with regard to marriage and the raising of children); the Pseudo-Persona (translating the will and expectations of another as though it was the person’s own will); Autistic Pockets (inability to be carried away, as it were, by sexual experiences); the Primary Rejection Factor (where the neonate has no address, target, or direction for its object-seeking libido); and the Inverse-Guilt Syndrome (emotional, physical and/or sexual molestation in a child up to the age of seven or eight).
Psychodiagnostic Chirology redefines (relabels) such psychical constructs as the False Self, Fragmentation, the Schizoid Temperament, Negative Oral and Negative Anal fixations, the Life, Sex and Death Instincts, Role-Identity and Ego-Ideals. There are more. Some have it that, by far, the most dramatic contribution of PDC in this regard is that it defines and makes entirely measurable such central systems in the psyche as Will and the Self.

 

[Jeff Corey]

Also, "The hands are an extension of the brain. We know this today to be a fact."
These people are nuttier than a slip of Freudians.

 

[Mensvoort]

Hi there!

Did anyone take a look at the Laboratory Testing, which was discovered above by Dancing David? I think that there was at least some serious intent behind this research program - though it remains inclear why the results were never published.



Quote:

Laboratory Testing
undertaken at:
Bar-Ilan University/Dept. of Criminology
Nes-Ziona Government Psychiatric Hospital
(on the stationary of)
BAR-ILAN UNIVERSITY
52900 RAMAT GAN, ISRAEL
January 19, 1993
(TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL DOCUMENT IN HEBREW)

To
Dr. Arnold Holtzman
Dear Sir,

This is to confirm the facts as follows:

1. In the years '87 -'88 a program was conducted in the department of Criminology at Bar-Ilan University to test the validity and reliability of your diagnostic system. This system is founded on a study of the hand - psychodiagnostic chirology.

2. The program was a pilot study whose design and method of execution I, then as head of the Department of Criminology, had determined. This was with your agreement.

3. The tests were conducted at the psychiatric hospital at Nes-Ziona with the co- operation of Dr. Natan Karni, director of the out-patients clinic at the hospital.

4. In the first test you were presented with 6 persons for examination. You were to make assessments of each which were to be compared against the assessments of Dr. Karni. You were told that all were patients suffering mental disorders. However, among the six tested one was planted who was completely without pathological circumstances and this person was successfully identified by you.

5. The second examination was to test reliability. Eight of your pupils were invited to diagnose 12 persons with the goal of establishing the degree of concurrence between their diagnoses. The reliability was particularly high (about 80% agreement).

6. The third examination was to test validity. Photographs were taken of the hands of patients at the Nes Ziona psychiatric hospital who were suffering mental disorders, and of other persons constituting control groups (altogether 22 examinees of whom one was disqualified so that the results were based on 21 examinees). Your evaluations were made on the basis of the photographs alone. It was ascertained that the photographer had no background in psychology or any related science.

7. Your evaluations and those of Dr. Karni, which were inclusive of the control groups, were forwarded to psychiatrists Prof. P. Silfen and Dr. A. Levy (who were informed neither of the objective of the test, nor of the origins of the diagnoses).

In line with a questionnaire which I had prepared both psychiatrists were asked to compare both sets of evaluations and, in summation, judge the degree of general correlation between them. (This in line with the scale from 1 - no correlation, to 7 - total correlation.)

The results were:

Prof. P. Silfen

2 examinations - evaluation 7
1 examination - evaluation 6
2 examinations - evaluation 5
5 examinations - evaluation 4
6 examinations - evaluation 3
2 examinations - evaluation 2
3 examinations - evaluation 1
Dr. A. Levy

0 examinations - evaluation 7
4 examinations - evaluation 6
6 examinations - evaluation 5
4 examinations - evaluation 4
4 examinations - evaluation 3
2 examinations - evaluation 2
1 examination - evaluation 1
Yours truly,

(signed)
Prof. Israel Nachshon

Remarks by Dr. Arnold Holtzman:
The reports prepared and submitted by Dr. Natan Karni were labeled the red reports. The reports I had submitted were labeled the green reports. The psychiatrists Prof. P. Silfen and Dr. A. Levy were not told whether they had to compare the green reports against the red reports or vice versa. For this reason marks were removed when my reports focused beyond diagnosis and the listing of symptoms to include etiology. The psychiatric reports made no reference to etiology and the correlation factor was subsequently lowered because of this "omission". Nevertheless, even as it stands, the correlation factor powerfully supports the clinical validity of psychodiagnostic chirology.