A golf ball and a ping pong ball are almost identical in size, yet consider the distance each will travel when struck with the same force. Coal and cotton will burn, but how much longer and how much more heat will the coal produce than will and equal volume of cotton? In these examples we have all that needs to be known about hardness and softness in terms of energy potential.

The rule is that the potential inherent in any human facet must be regarded as a need in the sense that a person must give that potential its true expression if he (or she) is to know a sense of self-fulfillment or self-actualization.* For example, a mind that can manage the intricacies of a sophisticated computer system would hardly be satisfied if it's owner had to work only with simple adding machines. Similarly, a body which is equipped for strenuous labor would drive its owner to seek a field where it might labor strenuously. Put the same body behind a desk and have it punch buttons and talk at length on the telephone and it will realize quickly that it isn’t where it should be.

Every innate talent is a potential which becomes a need. The artist will be moved to paint - the dancer to dance.** If a born musician is unfortunate enough to grow up in circumstances which deny him access to a musical education or a musical instrument, he may come to feel that his life is out of synch. But one way or another, and however belatedly, he will almost certainly gravitate to music.

In terms of their energy potential, (and the needs which develop from them ), the relative hardness or softness of the palms has the first order of importance in their psychological implications.

In considering the possibilities inherent in hardness and softness, our greatest difficulty may be semantic. We will speak of hardness in terms of rigidity - but rigidity has many sides to it. Rigidity means fixed ideas and inflexible patterns of behavior. It also means standing one’s ground in adversity and holding on to one’s beliefs. Softness will be understood in terms of elasticity and accomodation. But here too the implications can be positive and negative. Therefore, as our point of departure, let us agree to this; hardness or softness carried to extreme will invariably have negative implications.

A palm is hard when it is seen to resist pressure. And a palm can be about as hard as a slab of concrete. Ordinarily, it should give in to some pressure and bounce right back once that pressure is released. Here we would be dealing with an elastic consistency which is the most “comfortable” insofar as it promises a capacity to adapt. A palm is soft when it offers little or no resistance to pressure. Press a finger into it, and the place stays pressed even after the finger is removed. Keep in mind though that there are measures in between. A palm may be elastic to hard, or elastic to soft.

A hard hand identifies a person who has enormous reserves of physical energy. A soft hand will always find itself at a loss in this respect.

If the physical energy available to the bearer of the hard hand, raises in him the need to seek release for this energy, the man will be motivated to relate to the world in extrovert fashion. This is because the pattern of behavior which would be meaningful to him would link him to objectives outside his own inner world system. If he is to chop down a tree or take apart an automobile engine, he will find no satisfaction merely thinking about doing these things. Hardness translates will into real effects. The tree will come down, and the engine will come apart. And the man won’t stop there. He’ll find another tree and another engine... or anything else beyond himself which can absorb the energies in him which seek release.

Entirely polar to this is the story of the very soft hand. Physical energy is minimal, and labor holds absolutely no attraction for such people. When it happens that their obligations call for the investment of strenuous effort, they invariably undergo a lengthy process whereby they prepare themselves emotionally for the inescapable unpleasantness. Until then, thinking will replace doing, and the 'doing' itself, if it ever comes to that, will invariably be half-hearted and often insufficient.

Soft hands should be linked to introversion. If hard hands underline the executive functions, soft hands stress the sensitivity to Self. In the first instance needs are projected outward, in the latter instance, inward.
When we think of the infant’s progression from dependency to self-autonomy we would link the condition of softness with its ability to adjust. The infant would have to have the wherewithal to adjust if he (or she) would align himself (or herself) comfortably to a world which had its very singular designs. But as his hand gained in strength and tensiveness, this growing person would be less inclined to relinquish certain truths or points of reference which he had already come to introject and identify with. The mold of his identity and attitudes becomes more stable. The “elasticity”, as it were, in the formation of his attitudes becomes reduced. As circumstances develop meaning for him, and as his hands gain in hardness, he would demonstrate increasing loyalty to all that he had come to associate with himself and had come to accept as true for himself. We would speak of the process of consolidation of the Self.

Our world changes daily. Not always what is right and proper for one generation carries through to the next. New inventions give rise to new possibilities, and new possibilities play havoc with old notions. The pill is an excellent example of such an invention. Before AIDS it had radically adjusted sexual attitudes as had jet aircraft adjusted all the concepts and attitudes related to home and family. With a son in Toronto, a daughter living in New York, the parents in Montreal, and the grandparents in Florida, no one really feels that far away from the other.

But there was a time when things were different, and people had had to adjust. When, at the turn of the century, immigrants streamed into America from Europe, trading their lean and tired farms for tenaments and city blocks, those who could adjust found themselves new and meaningful lives. They “grew” into their circumstances, as it were. There were also those who could not adjust. ...the stubborn, hard-handed individuals who refused to adjust... who would not have things any way other than the way they had originally understood them. Here were the stern figures... the frowners... the Saturnian authorities who knew pride and honor and respect and the meaning of a handshake. They also knew loneliness and the loss of effective communication between themselves and those around them.

The truly hard hand simply cannot adjust to any concept or notion which is contrary to his original and fundamental understanding of things. Keep this in mind... repression is always manifest here. Hands which are distinctly hard, identify, without exception, the powerful repression of knowledge the conscious awareness of which would be too painful to bear. Repression would be this person's first order of defence.

With regard to the material repressed, this man would invariably adjust the truth than adjust his defensive line of thought. He would explain circumstances and behavior only in terms that would be acceptable to him.

A hard handed person who sincerely believes that he values honesty above all, will have no qualms about lying, convincing himself of the truth of his own lie for purposes of convincing others. For example... the man might be a full-fledged alcoholic and yet never admit to touching more than a drop on the rarest of occasions. He’ll hold on firmly to his position even if inundated with evidence which shows it to be entirely at variance with the truth. But a hard handed person may also be repressing from awareness unacceptable feelings, intolerable needs and dangerous drives. This is by far the most prevalent circumstance.

The reader should now begin to think of the defence mechanisms which such a person would adopt all too naturally. Tough, obstinate and stubborn, that would not necessarily be how he perceives himself. It is those who oppose him who must be obstinate and stubborn. He himself never lies. Those around him must lie constantly. Of course, other features in the hand may modify these expressions and reduce their coarseness. It is important to remember this. In hand analysis virtually every feature would have some modifying influence on every other feature.

The greatest problem the truly soft hand must contend with is assuring its security (survival) in such a way as maximizes comforts and minimizes obligations. There is almost no way the bearers of such hands can organize their lives without planning on having someone support them. There is virtually no way they can do it on their own - unless, of course they have to, and this does happen on occasion. They are always in touch with what pains them. This would be especially true if the hands are also thin. In this case if something isn’t too hot, then it’s too cold. They are forever on the receiving end of the inconsiderations of others - and if you listen to these people long enough you even believe them. The husband is callous... the children - well, she won’t talk about the children. Not after she slaved for them and they treat her so rotten.

The truly soft hand is always an indication of a dependent personality. But the reader should keep in mind our original theme - that assuring one’s survival is central to one’s conscious and subconscious motivations. Therefore, with regard to the dependent personality, if this can be accomplished with minimum friction by allowing oneself to be the responsibility of others, there will be a certain harmony between the dependent personality and his (or her) environment. The problems only become noticeable when the environment rejects this personality type.

The very soft hand is also an indication of the inward looking person who easily drifts into daydreams and sinks into fantasies. Reality is often too hostile for these people to willingly endure. They often suffer from neurasthenia, sometimes to such an extreme that a medical person begins to suspect Addison's Disease or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome where a virus may be the responsible agent for their 'tiredness'.

It is crucial that the reader bear in mind that the above material would relate to hands which manifest extreme hardness and rigidity, and extreme softness and elasticity. The vast majority of hands, understandably, would manifest a constitution somewhere between these extremes. But once alert to the expressions of these polarities the reader would quickly visualize the possibilities when hands tend to hardness, or tend to softness.

*To permit fluidity of expression references to the individual will be with the masculine gender. In all instances the references would be intended equally for both male and female.
**This may not be true if the individual has assumed a False Self. ('Please refer to related chapters in 'The Illustrated Textbook of Psychodiagnostic Chirology in Analysis and Therapy' by the writer of these lines - Dr. Arnold Holtzman..)

All rights reserved to Dr.Arnold Holtzman, The Psychodiagnostic Chirology Institute