Re: V - Can Mental Illness be Diagnosed from the Palm?I

**Martijn (admin)** Wed Oct 13, 2010 10:18 pm

Hi Asif,

Yes, I think you understood my point - and I can relate very well to your own experience with people who have "hands with head lines are islanded and broken but these types of people are very intelligent and some are indulging themselves in a teaching profession."

That relates exactly to the point that I made!

Thumb up

Regarding your idea about creating a new thread about people with specific psychological problem - yes, I like it very much: so you're very welcome to take the initiative.

Especially if you are able to present example which meet the following three requirements: (1) QUALITY handprint examples from Malik's book, with (2) all five fingers visible, and (3) featured with a diagnosis... I think such examples could indeed initiate some nice discussions!

Thumbs up!

Asif, I am looking forward to see the examples that you have in mind!

**asif amin** Thu Oct 14, 2010 6:13 am

Dear Martijin,
Thanks for appreciation.

**cshahar** Thu Oct 14, 2010 6:59 pm

Hi Martijn:

I think Malik makes the point that these are the "best examples" or the most reflective of the mental condition in question. Of course, these are selected by him to dramatize the hand features. I have no problem with that, as long as we keep in mind that they represent extreme varieties, which is what I think you are saying. I still find them very interesting.

I think it speaks to the question regarding whether we wish to take the "abnormal model" or "normal model" of human behavior. What I am saying is that we can study the most abnormal hands to understand better what a hand in the normal range might be. On the other hand, there are many people with "normal" hands, who might have severe psychological difficulties, so the reasoning here might be a bit circular.

-Charles
.

**cshahar** Thu Oct 14, 2010 7:13 pm

Martijn, I just wanted to mention one additional thing. Science in the social domain (psychology, sociology, etc.) focuses on probabilities. There are no formulas when it comes to human nature. Hence, why should one expect anything different from palmistry? In fact, it is unfair and silly to demand a greater accuracy from palmistry than even what much more established disciplines offer. You know the predictive value of personality tests, and psychometrics in general. To look for formulas in palmistry is untenable. On the other hand, one can look for patterns and their probabilities.

So why do we have such high expectations among the public?? The answer I think is partly due to the exaggerated claims and sensationalism practiced by many palmistry books today. Conversely, it is also because some palmistry books claim that the discipline is a scientific one. The true state of affairs lies somewhere in between.

Bottom line: Probabilities are not sexy!

-Charles

**Martijn (admin)** Sun Sep 15, 2013 12:40 pm

Lynn wrote:Aug 16th Charles said
cshahar wrote:Do you have a summary of your notes related to depression and schizophrenia, i.e. the most prominent signs?
Hi Charles sorry I took some time to get back to you. I found the notes from the seminar but I remember now we were told to keep the schizophrenia study for our private ref, as the scientific study hadn't been published - that was 1998. I don't know if it ever was published, I can't find it online. The woman who was doing the study was Talma Brill from Israel. There were 7 parameters that she found significant in the hands of schizophrenics.
We didn't study depression at the seminar.

...

Hi Lynn,

I would love to hear more about the 7 parameters that Talma Brill found to be significant for the hand in schizophrenia, are you able to share more details?

wave

PS. I also discovered today that her research has been published in a (Hebrew) book, see:
http://www.chirology.co.il/english/research/

V - Can Mental Illness be Diagnosed from the Palm?I - Page 2 Book-front

V - Can Mental Illness be Diagnosed from the Palm?I - Page 2 Book-front

V - Can Mental Illness be Diagnosed from the Palm?I - Page 2 Book-back-a

**Lynn** Sun Sep 15, 2013 12:57 pm

AHA! Before your PS, I also just found Talma's website. Great to see that her results were published, but shame that I can't read Hebrew. I have just contacted Talma via her website, to tell her that you are interested in her work and to ask if she will comment on this discussion.

**Martijn (admin)** Sun Sep 15, 2013 12:58 pm

**Lynn** Sun Sep 15, 2013 1:13 pm

Martijn, I think your question about parameters may be answered in this article of Talma's from the Israel-Journal-of-psychiatry.

http://www.chirology.co.il/english/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Israel-Journal-of-psychiatry.pdf

**cshahar** Sun Sep 15, 2013 3:53 pm

Apparently 95.2% of psychiatric patients show abnormal head lines, whereas 42.9% of controls do. At least from this small sample, the suggestion is that almost all patients with mental illness have abnormal head lines, but so do almost half of "normal" people. It can be thought of as a "warning signal", but not definitive. A quick check of her findings suggests that flexibility of the hand (or lack of it) is the most common marker for mental illness, relative to those who don't display such problems.

-Charles

**Lynn** Sun Sep 15, 2013 4:12 pm

Charles said -

the suggestion is that almost all patients with mental illness have abnormal head lines, but so do almost half of "normal" people.

Of course this is a difficult subject to have a control group.
Not like eg when studying Down's sydrome - if the control group don't have Down's syndrome, you know they are never going to develop it!
But in this study, although the control group had never received psychiatric or psychological treatment during their lives, there is no way of knowing exactly how many people out of this control group might go on to develop mental illness later in their lifetime.

**cshahar** Sun Sep 15, 2013 5:37 pm

Absolutely right. There are many other issues that creep in, a few of which she mentions. So what is needed is an extensive study that has more statistical heft behind it. But I wonder whether such studies will be nothing more than curiosity pieces for the mainstream clinical community, who won't likely switch to reading palms for diagnostic purposes. It is professional palm readers who may benefit more from this analysis.

**Martijn (admin)** Sun Sep 15, 2013 6:32 pm

Lynn wrote:Martijn, I think your question about parameters may be answered in this article of Talma's from the Israel-Journal-of-psychiatry.

http://www.chirology.co.il/english/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Israel-Journal-of-psychiatry.pdf

Yes indeed!

Thumbs up!

PS. Interesting study for sure, though it's also a bit disappointing to see that no results at all have been reported for the schizophrenics in specific - especially since I am aware that regarding the hands of schizophrenics very different results have been published compared to other psychiatric populations.

**Martijn (admin)** Sun Sep 15, 2013 7:00 pm

cshahar wrote:Apparently 95.2% of psychiatric patients show abnormal head lines, whereas 42.9% of controls do. At least from this small sample, the suggestion is that almost all patients with mental illness have abnormal head lines, but so do almost half of "normal" people. It can be thought of as a "warning signal", but not definitive. A quick check of her findings suggests that flexibility of the hand (or lack of it) is the most common marker for mental illness, relative to those who don't display such problems.

-Charles

Excellent observations Charles!

I have just checked the strength of the results for the individual features (via log odds ratios); the results for feature 12 (anomalies in proximal palmar line) and feature 3 (flexibility) are indeed most significant... followed by feature 6 (underdeveloped upper ulnar).

thinking

Interesting to see that the two most significant features relate to the two most significant perspectives of the hand ('hand lines' & 'hand motorics') that I have noticed so far based on the 30 studies reported for the hand in schizophrenia inside my article (I say this being aware that Brill has not reported any results for the schizoprenics in specific).

The underdeveloped upper ulnar could relate to the lack of 'expression of the outer hand' factors which have been reported in the Haft-Pomrock study: http://www.mhpublications.com/Difference.htm

PS. Yes, the research method is not very specified; the 'distribution' result presented in figure 1 looks quite impressive at first sight... but I think it should be evaluated in the perspective of the fact that the authors do admit (on page 109):

"Further the open nature of this study raises the possibility of bias. In deciding between the presence of absence of a measure, the difference between yes and no may have been influenced by the measurer's expected outcome."

**Martijn (admin)** Sun Sep 15, 2013 7:22 pm

Beyond Brill's study:

Shocked

... I just took a look at one of the schizophrenia cases that I present in my article about schizophrena (see below); not 100% confident, but I think I have spotted a WHORL on the proximal phalange of the little finger...!???

(Not sure, but I do not recall that I have ever seen a whorl in that location... at least not in a human hand!!!)

V - Can Mental Illness be Diagnosed from the Palm?I - Page 2 Schizophrenia-case-1

V - Can Mental Illness be Diagnosed from the Palm?I - Page 2 Schizophrenia-case-1

**Lynn** Sun Sep 15, 2013 7:32 pm

Martijn (admin) wrote:
Beyond Brill's study:

... I just took a look at one of the schizophrenia cases that I present in my article about schizophrena (see below); not 100% confident, but I think I have spotted a WHORL on the proximal phalange of the little finger...!???

(Not sure, but I do not recall that I have ever seen a whorl in that location... at least not in a human hand!!!)

WOW! yeah it looks like a whorl. I don't recall ever before seeing a whorl on any phalanx except distal!

**cshahar** Sun Sep 15, 2013 9:18 pm

Exactly Martijn! The question from a perspective of rigor in methodology, is how one sets up a "double-blind" study, in which the palmist is not aware of whether he/she is dealing with an experimental or control group. I know what the mind can do when it has an opportunity to display its biases. The effect can be very subtle, but can certainly affect the results in a (statistically) significant way. Until such a study is done, we cannot really discount such biases and their potential to taint the data. On the other hand, schizophrenics can be "colorful" and short of putting everyone to sleep it may be impossible to prevent cues from leaking to the palmist. Frankly, just the fact that people are doing such studies seems like an accomplishment, no matter what the rigor involved. I cannot imagine approaching my local psychiatric hospital with such a proposal. One needs good connections i would think.

-Charles

**Martijn (admin)** Sun Sep 15, 2013 9:57 pm

cshahar wrote:Exactly Martijn! The question from a perspective of rigor in methodology, is how one sets up a "double-blind" study, in which the palmist is not aware of whether he/she is dealing with an experimental or control group. I know what the mind can do when it has an opportunity to display its biases. The effect can be very subtle, but can certainly affect the results in a (statistically) significant way. Until such a study is done, we cannot really discount such biases and their potential to taint the data. On the other hand, schizophrenics can be "colorful" and short of putting everyone to sleep it may be impossible to prevent cues from leaking to the palmist. Frankly, just the fact that people are doing such studies seems like an accomplishment, no matter what the rigor involved. I cannot imagine approaching my local psychiatric hospital with such a proposal. One needs good connections i would think.

-Charles

Yes Charles, I guess that is why they decided to include the words 'a preliminary evaluation' inside the title of the study; anyway, I do like the attempt to combine the most significant results in order to see to what extend the results make it possible to discriminate the schizophrenics from the controls.

PS. By the way, I think you will be interested in this 2013 study (two of Arold Holtzman's students are co-authors) which was published last month:
http://www.psy-journal.com/article/S0165-1781(13)00486-1/abstract

(I already have full access to the article, but I am waiting to see if Holtzman will make any public references to this article)

**cshahar** Mon Sep 16, 2013 2:34 am

"A combination of three of the parameters was found to have good predicting abilities to distinguish between schizophrenics and controls."

I wonder what those three parameters were. I would love to see the full results. The summary seems promising, particularly the "ease of application" reference.

Just curious: why is so much research on this subject being done in Israel specifically?

sureshraj Wed Oct 23, 2013 5:18 pm

Martijn (admin) wrote:Hi Charles,

Great qestion!

I also would like to add that there are no 'formulas' available for DIAGNOSING any psychiatric disorders through the hand.

Hi

I have been reading few books regarding psycho-diagnostics cheirology and found them interesting. But after reading your above comment, I really doubt "What might be the significances of psycho-diagnostic cheirology?

**Talma Brill** Thu Jan 30, 2014 8:46 am

Lynn wrote:Aug 16th Charles said
Hi Charles sorry I took some time to get back to you. I found the notes from the seminar but I remember now we were told to keep the schizophrenia study for our private ref, as the scientific study hadn't been published - that was 1998. I don't know if it ever was published, I can't find it online. The woman who was doing the study was Talma Brill from Israel. There were 7 parameters that she found significant in the hands of schizophrenics.
We didn't study depression at the seminar.

Hi everybody,

My name is Talma Brill and I am the one that Lynn mentioned , recalling the seminar about this topic in 1998. I am a professional chirologist more than 25 years, and I have conducted two scientific studies in the Abrabanel mental center, an hospital associated to Tel-Aviv university, in Israel.
My original intention was to check and identify hand features which associated with suicidal tendencies, but certain considerations made us to prefer the general question, if it is possible to identify, and define the differences, between the patients and the controls, by the prints of their hands and direct observation. This was a pilot study, which included 117 people, and the statistical results were astonishingly significant.
This paper was exhibited as a poster in psychiatry convention, and was published in the Israel Journal of Psychiatry, 1999.
It can be seen in my English site: www.chirology.co.il , in the section called "published".

The second study was blind, included 100 people, all the patients were diagnosed as schizophrenics, the controls were mostly personnel, (from M.Ds to nurses, cleaners, etc.) and again, the question was if I could identify who is who, by the hand prints only. I did correctly identify 74% of the participants, beside several specific parameters which were found very statistically significant.
It is considered to be very strong results.

The two studies are included in my book: "The Hand: a mirror of the soul, Diagnostic and Applied Chirology" (Hebrew) which I hope to publish in English.
.
On the way, I learned a lot and got more confidence in my knowledge on the topics of suicidal tendencies, depressive tendencies and anxiety. So I give workshops on these topics to psychologists and care takers.

Thank you all for raising this important topic and discussing it. I think that every counselor, and a chirologist is a counselor, and every caretaker, and a good chirologist is a kind of a caretaker, should have this knowledge, not for making a diagnosis, but for asses wisely and know when to refer the person to the appropriate professionals.

**Lynn** Thu Jan 30, 2014 11:40 am

Hello Talma wave

It is good to see you here. Thanks for posting about your work.

**Martijn (admin)** Thu Jan 30, 2014 12:43 pm

Thanks for posting Talma, very nice post!

I would recommend people to visit your website via the English homepage: http://www.chirology.co.il/english/

Thumbs up!

PS. Regarding the major result of your 2nd study (74%), though the result is 'signficant' I recognize that this percentage is not very high (e.g. because we should be aware here that 26 out of 100 subject were assessed incorrectly). I think this result illustrates that - despite your earlier expertise with the hand in schizophrenia - in general it remains very hard to discriminate schizophrenics from non-schizophrenics.

**Talma Brill** Mon Feb 03, 2014 7:51 am

Thank you Lynn, thank you Martijn,

About the significance of the hand test: 74% is a very significant result according to the standards of the social sciences, including medicine. A new medicine with this "score" in a new field would be considered to be very successful, unless there is a better one for the same problem. When you deal with research concerning human beings, you can never aim to the 100%. Chirology, like psychology and other social sciences, is not an exact science.
And yes, it is difficult, sometimes impossible, to know in a definite way if someone is schizophrenic or not. Professionals also have doubts many times about diagnosis, since human beings are so complicated, and there are cases of border lines. Professionals may also make mistakes in diagnosis.
Here the hand test, when it is done by an experienced and responsible chirologist, can suggest an assistance, still within an approach of modesty, knowing that we, too, cannot know everything, all the time.

**Martijn (admin)** Mon Feb 03, 2014 11:52 am

Sure Talma, I agree we should be aware of the fact that we are involved with behavioral sciences where 100% discrimination scores are rarely seen.

However, schizophrenia is not just an ordinary daily-life theme; in fact, last year researchers have claimed to be able to discriminatie 25 schizophrenics from 25 non-schizophrenics via MicroRNAs in nose cells (this implicates a 100% score), see:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969996113000995
http://www.jpost.com/Health-and-Science/Researchers-claim-to-diagnose-schizophrenia-early-310874

So, even despite the validity of the concept 'schizophrenia' is still questioned, results for biological tissues are sometimes very impressive.

I guess... too be continued!

Anyway, thanks again for posting Talma!

wave

**Talma Brill** Tue Feb 04, 2014 3:20 pm

thank you, Matijn, for letting me know about this impressive study!
i'm very pleased to know that Israel is in the front of the research in this field, hopefuly finding ways of relieving suffering of human beings of this terrible disease.
however, Noam Shomron, the researcher of this study, still claims that it is a long way until the point of a definite diagnosis of schizophrenia.
from my experience i can say, that some of the patients that took place in my sudies were very easy to diagnose, while some others were very difficult to decide upon, with all the range in between.
so, while you look at the 26 persons that i've identify wrongly, i prefer to look at the 70 i've identify correctly...

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V - Can Mental Illness be Diagnosed from the Palm?I