Love or Emotional Dependency? Round Letters
Round writing is characterized by its circular shape. It is found forming the ovals and part of some letters (d, g, q). Sometimes the n, m and the letter u are given a round shape. The round letters are clearly seen when we analyze the middle zone of a writing.
Graphology is a technique that studies handwriting:
1. Observing the handwriting from the particular and specific to the general. Describing each trait, each letter, and each stroke to unite all these elements and reach the personality of the writer.
2. Interpreting the handwriting as an integrated whole. Like a “Gestalt”. This German term means “the whole”. Gestalt graphology is the one that analyzes the text as a photograph or aa a painting. (When looking at a photo we see the “whole” image and do not dwell on particular details).
In the round letters the ovals are particularly analyzed:
– Shape: if they are round, angular, flattened, etc.
– The closure: if they are open, closed or if they have some characteristic details that differentiates them or that attracts attention.
The oval is the referent of the middle zone of handwriting because it symbolically represents the I of the writer, the affective part of him.
What is emotional dependency?
Dependency: It is the lack of autonomy that some people suffer. It is a symptom of immaturity that characterizes subjects who need others to act in a certain way to satisfy them. This dependency can be economic, labor, professional or emotional. The emotional dependent is someone who needs to feel the support, appreciation, presence of others to perform a task or have optimal behavior.
Autonomy vs Dependency
It comes from the term “autos” which means self and “nomos” which means, custom or Law.
It is “governing oneself”. It is the ability to abide by the laws that have been dictated by one’s own conscience and that has become emotionally independent. It is impossible to be an autonomous person when to function in life you need the approval of others. When you have a weak self, you lose your own identity.
There are many emotional dependents of their partner who mimic themselves in such a way that they lose their own identity by becoming someone else without even realizing it. They change everything to please the other trying not to leave that other. It modifies their affective self or the set of self-referential information that identifies them and differentiates them from others.
Round Letters and the Oral Character in Handwriting
In adults, emotional dependence generates symbiosis in order to obtain constant approval and acceptance. Protection is needed as if it were a child. Although this situation may be transitory, it is a pattern in the way of life that is repeated throughout existence and all the links established with different people.
Those who suffer from emotional dependence cannot conceive of life without their sentimental partner and are afraid of being alone. They usually relate to narcissistic dominant people, who cause them from psychological abuse to submission and physical abuse. People affected by emotional dependency sometimes recognize that they are being belittled, but they cannot free themselves and even apologize so as not to upset their partner and avoid abandonment.
Relationship between Round Letters and Emotional Dependency
Psychological meaning of writing with round letters
P. Foglia in his work “General Graphology” quotes Solange Pellat: “All egocentric, sinistrogyrous and enveloping movements are movements towards the Self”.
The round letters relate to the first stage of psychosexual development: the oral stage. The first representation of the “I” that the child makes is a circle to which he adds hands, feet, eyes, mouth: which we call “monigote”.
During evolution, the child discovers the external world through the mother’s breast and her mouth. It is called the oral stage and finds pleasure in sucking, biting. Depending on how this stage is overcome, it will be the character that person acquires. Freud explains in his theory that individuals who are “fixed” in the oral stage will have infantile characteristics and emotional dependency. Psychoanalytic theory speaks of attachments to the different stages of psychosexual development that are reflected in the writing of the subject.
What are Fixations?
Not all people go through these stages of development with the same ease and completely overcome them. Sometimes, some are permanently delayed in these early stages. When the needs of the child during this first stage are not satisfied, but are repressed or there are facts that leave traces, this will mark unique traits in his personality. Fixation is the exaggerated attachment to people or objects that leads to a delay in the emotional development of the individual.
When do we talk about fixation?
Libido is an energy that drives us after the pursuit of pleasure. When the libido stops at certain erogenous zones, we speak of fixation. This libidinal energy that has been fixed is repressed giving rise to regression. For Freud, fixations can occur due to specific events such as: trauma, family influences or due to an inability of the subject to leave a stage in which he found satisfaction. It may be due to a lack of confidence that the new stage will bring other sources of pleasure or satisfaction.
Read also: Freud’s psychic apparatus
Signs of Emotional Dependency in Handwriting
The emotional dependence that persists in adult life causing difficulties in establishing new bonds is reflected in the writing. The round letters show emotional dependency in those who have difficulties in making decisions. The person, instead of relying on their own initiatives when facing situations, demands as if they were a child. They are very possessive, submissive beings and need the approval of others.
The round letters are not only observed in subjects who satisfy their existential emptiness with “gastronomic pleasures” or vices such as alcohol and tobacco. It also manifests itself in the need to feel recognized, flattered and socially important. Emotional dependency is evidenced in writing as passive or active depending on when fixation occurred. In the first oral phase (sucking phase) or in the second oral phase (sadistic or cannibalistic phase). In the cases in which the text corresponds to subjects of an active oral nature, round letters “coexist” with aggressive features (such as thrown endings, steely, disproportion).
Need for Acceptance and Attached Letters
On the other hand, when we are dealing with personalities of a passive oral nature, we will find adjoining letters, little space between words, low underworld.
This is evident in those people who need the recognition of others. They crave to be treated like children, require acceptance from others, and are extremely sensitive subjects. In general, they repress aggressiveness and find it difficult to express what they dislike, either due to fear of rejection or need for acceptance.
Round letters: Positive side
The round letters express stability of mind in the presence of unforeseen events. They show good development of perception that favors memory, a tendency to low emotionality, pay attention to image and appearances.
They reflect the ability to harmonize the useful with the pleasant and their own interests with those of others, avoiding conflicts. Disposition to find the common benefit in associations. The subject avoids risks that would expose him to losing his standard of living.
Round Letters and Temperament
According to Augusto Vels in the “Dictionary of Graphology and Related Psychological Terms” he describes that the round letters associated with a slow rhythm are linked to the lymphatic temperament. They show passive adaptability, they are sociable personalities but not very demonstrative, restful, calm and do not show enthusiasm or ambition.
There are other graphic variables that confirm aspects of the linking modality of the writer.
The dependency according to Vels is reflected in: Very inclined writing, low (capital letters and “t” bars), calligraphic writing, careful, orderly, descending, grouped (separate capital letters); delayed, paused or slow, vacant, indecisive. Emotional dependence is analyzed in the treatment of ovals and also in the spacing between letters and between words.
What are Attached Letters?
According to A, Vels in “Graphology from A to Z“, “the attached ones affect the spacing between letters, causing adhesions or hooks between letter and letter, in some cases the letters are mounted or superimposed on each other, without necessarily being a tight writing since the width of the letters can be normal or even greater.
This sign is characteristic of adolescence, it is linked to the regression of movements that imposes a brake by reservation, mistrust. It indicates a symbiotic tendency, a tendency to orality, affective dependence, even economic parasitism. This is reinforced if the writing is round, soft and wide”.
Difference between Round letters and rounded writing
There is a difference between round letters, rounded script and curvy script. Vels describes a beautiful symbolic comparison between the round and rounded letters with the movements of the planet earth (rotation and translation). The rotation movement is of the earth on its axis, on itself, it does not go forward but goes backwards, it returns to the beginning as in the round letters. Unlike the movement of translation, which is “oval”, supposes displacement and advance from the I to the You, or towards the object.
The round letters carry out a movement around itself, while in the rounded writing there is a progressive forward movement that goes from the “I towards the others”.
From this symbolic comparison, meanings can be inferred around the orientation of desires and affective bonding:
1. The “egocentric” around the body itself, its needs in round writing.
2. The direction to the “object” in round or oval writing.
The Rounded Handwriting
Rounded writing is more agile and active than round writing. It implies movement towards the “love object”. In childhood this love object is represented by the mother or the father. In adulthood by a person of the opposite sex (once the Oedipus complex has been overcome). This progressive movement also translates to the work and professional fields. The subject is mobilized towards goals of achievement in the outside world expressing desires for communication, participation and reception.
How do you analyze rounded writing from the positive side?
It is framed as a progressive handwriting that transmits the adaptation of the subject without difficulties or impediments and implies good health. The subject manages to satisfy his needs without clashes between what he wants and the possibilities that reality presents him. This writing is characterized by presenting a rhythm that is preserved within the “methodical inequality” (Moretti).
How to Interprete Rounded Letters
Pleasant character, sympathy, empathy, benevolence, imagination, taste for aesthetics and art. Rounded writing when there is good graphic dynamism “methodical inequality”, is associated with optimism, joy of living, with grace, seduction.
According to Augusto Vels “Round writing is more introjective than extrajective”. “The rounded script is more extrajective than introjective.”
Graphology: Curved Writing
Differences between Round Letters and Curved Writing
Curvilinear writing is called writing whose normal angles in the letters adopt a curvilinear shape. The curve symbolizes adaptation, communication, affability, empathy, complacency. The curve analyzed from the movement is characterized by an easy line that slides and flows spontaneously towards the “object”. He “moves” towards others out of a need for tenderness, for communication, for affective identification, in search of affinities. Adaptation is a sign of harmony and psychic balance.
The Dark Side of the Curve
The curve can also be selfish and respond to a need of the subject to feel the center of all interest and attention. Giving rise to selfishness, self-centeredness, narcissism. The curved writing reflects: union, love, pleasure, affability, empathy, although the intention may be hoarding and selfish. Two types of curve are distinguished: 1. the round and slow curve and 2. the oval curve.
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Source: A. Vels in “Graphology from A to Z”. Augusto Vels, “Dictionary of Graphology and related Psychological terms”, P. Foglia, “General Graphology Vol II”.