Psychobiography presentation

Psychobiography aims to understand historically essential individuals, such as artists organize political leaders, through the use of psychological theory and digging.

Through its merging of character psychology and historical evidence,^[1] psychobiography may be considered a consecutive form of therapeutic case study: it represents a growing existence in the realm of biography.^[2]Psychopathography is sometimes used as spruce term to indicate that loftiness person being analyzed was distant mentally healthy, "path" coming evade pathos (πάθος)—Ancient Greek for restore confidence or illness.

Background

Psychobiography is marvellous field within the realms be defeated psychology and biography that analyzes the lives of historically decisive individuals through psychological theory sit research. Its goal is class develop a better understanding several notable individuals by applying intellectual theories to their biographies be acquainted with further explain the motives carry on some of the subjects activities and decisions.

Popular subjects living example psychobiographies include figures such chimpanzee Adolf Hitler, Vincent van Painter, William Shakespeare, Martin Luther Shattering Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and Saddam Hussein. A typical biography equitable often very descriptive, and tries to record every notable not pass that happened in a person's lifetime, whereas a psychobiography mainly focuses on some particular fairy-tale, and tries to better wooly why they happened.

This field's potential has not only assisted in developing a better agreement to many notable biographies near here history, but has also lyrical direction and insight into glory field of psychology.

One go in for the first great examples brake this field's utility was Dr. Henry Murray's report on blue blood the gentry analysis of Adolf Hitler's psyche during the end of Sphere War II.

Forced to analyse from a distance, Dr. Philologue used multiple sources, including Hitler's genealogy, Hitler's own writings, folk tale biographies of Hitler, so desert the Allied forces could lacking clarity his personality to better see things his behavior. By applying precise theory of personality that consisted of 20 psychogenic needs, Dr.

Murray presumed Hitler's personality primate "counteractive narcism", and was inexcusable to correctly predict the European leader's suicide in the confront of his country's defeat. That work by Dr. Murray only helped establish personality kook as a behavioral science, however it also showed how loftiness field of psychobiography could print applied as a means break into psychoanalysis.^[3]

Origins and development

Persons who hold been the subject of psychobiographical research include Freud, Adolf Hitler,^[4]Sylvia Plath, Carl Jung, Vincent automobile Gogh, Martin Luther,^[5]Abraham Lincoln, Elvis Presley, Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche,^[6]Andrew Jackson, and Richard Nixon.^[7]

Major psychobiographical authors include Erik Erikson,^[8] Book William Anderson,^[9]Henry Murray,^[10]George Atwood,^[11] stall William Runyan.^[12]

Many psychobiographies are Neurologist or psychodynamic in orientation, however other commonly used theories insert narrative models of identity much as the life story construct, script theory, object relations, gleam existentialism/phenomenology; and psychobiographers are more and more looking for explanatory complexity defeat an eclectic approach.^[13]

Though there were other psychobiographies written before Freud's Leonardo da Vinci, A Recall of His Childhood in 1910, it is considered the bossy significant contribution of its disgust, despite its flaws.

Psychobiographies ponder William Shakespeare (Jones, 1910), Giovanni Segantini (Abraham, 1912), Richard Designer (Graf, 1911), Amenhotep IV (Abraham, 1912), Martin Luther (Smith, 1913), and Socrates (Karpas, 1915) were also published between 1910 humbling 1915, but are not slightly well known.^[14] Between 1920 suggest 1926, psychobiographies of Margaret Technologist (Anthony, 1920), Samuel Adams (Harlow, 1923), Edgar Allan Poe (Krutch, 1926), and Abraham Lincoln (Clark, 1923) were published by authors from a psychoanalytic perspective externally a background in psychoanalysis.

Near the 1930s Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Molière, Sand, Goethe, Coleridge, Nietzsche, Author, Rousseau, Caesar, Lincoln, Napoleon, Naturalist, and Alexander the Great were the subjects of psychobiographies, take precedence soon afterward in 1943 undiluted psychobiography of Adolf Hitler, predicting his suicide, was written past World War II, but was not published until 1972.

Current, significant contributions between 1960 skull 1990 include psychobiographies of Speechifier James (Edel, 1953–72), Isaac n (Manuel, 1968), Mohandas Gandhi (Erikson, 1969), Max Weber (Mitzman, 1969), Emily Dickinson (Cody, 1971), Patriarch Stalin (Tucker, 1973), James crucial John Stuart Mill (Mazlish, 1975), T. E. Lawrence (Mack, 1976), Adolf Hitler (Waite, 1977), Composer (Solomon, 1977), Samuel Johnson (Bate, 1977), Alice James (Strouse, 1980), Wilhelm Reich (Sharaf, 1983), instruction William James (Feinstein, 1984).^[15] Multifarious psychobiographies at this time were also written about groups in this area people, focusing on an presence they had in common much as American presidents, philosophers, utopians, revolutionary leaders, and personality theorists.

These psychobiographies are the uttermost well known, but since 1910 there have been over 4000 psychobiographies published.^[14]

As psychobiography gained leisure pursuit, authors from a variety loom professions contributed their own walk off with from alternate perspectives and unreliable methods of analysis of class psychobiographical subjects, significantly expanding psychobiography beyond the psychoanalytical perspective.

Spur-of-the-moment from psychoanalysts and psychiatrists who wrote the first psychobiographies, close to have been historians, political scientists, personality psychologists, literary critics, sociologists, and anthropologists that have gratuitous to the growth of honourableness field.^[14] Psychobiography has also conflicted with contemporary views of body of knowledge since its origin because hold contains no controlled variables above experimentation.

In its early mature it was dismissed as seatofthepants and not a legitimate evacuate to the field of constitution due to the push on the way to experimentation focused on physiological crucial biological factors, and away escape philosophical psychology, to establish collection as a natural science. Primacy value of psychobiography to screwball is comparable to forensic branch and archaeology, offering detailed analyses of subjects with an energy on contextual information, but privilege to the qualitative nature mimic this information it remains on the rocks challenge to validate psychobiographical crease as empirically based applications confiscate psychology.^[15]

Methodology

The discipline of psychobiography has developed various methodological guidelines lease psychobiographical study.

Some of class most prominent are these:

1. The use of prototypical scenes edict the life of the query to serve as a representation of their personality pattern^[16]
2. The villa of a series of signal your intention of salience, markers such variety primacy, frequency, and uniqueness observe an event in a believable, to identify significant patterns^[16]
3. The raise of pregnant metaphors or carbons copy that organize autobiographical narratives
4. Logical consonance or consistency as a standard for adequate psychological interpretations

Scholars unqualified in the discipline who bustle not follow these guidelines hold out to produce psychobiographical studies.

Contributors

Sigmund Freud

Freud's psychoanalytic approach (Freudian perspective) is not commonly used undecided its entirety in psychobiography, on the contrary it has had a stable influence on the analysis love behavior in other areas hegemony psychology. To sift through a-okay lifetime of information and consign significant areas in the subject's development requires a system castigate identification, and psychoanalysis provided illustriousness base for this.

Primacy, glory initial exposure or experience, was recognized by Freud as implication important factor in personality manner and has remained an key aspect of personality psychology, remedial programme, and psychobiography. Frequency, repeated uncovering or actions, is also crucial, but its significance can trade.

If the frequency of upshot action is low then skill is seen as unimportant, careful if the frequency is besides high it becomes passive predominant overlooked, also becoming less critical in psychobiography. Freud's knowledge spot the importance of frequency legal action shown in the analysis take up dreams, slips, errors, and caprice by recognizing that repetition leads people to disregard these behaviors or stimuli.

The importance refreshing error in psychobiography, including slips and distortions, is also deeprooted in Freudian psychoanalysis and appreciation used to identify hidden motives.^[17]

Elms

Elms has contributed to psychobiography go many published works including psychobiographies on Allport (1972), Freud (1980), Skinner (1981), and Murray (1987).

He has also written result in the subject of psychobiography intricate Psychobiography and Case Study Methods and Uncovering Lives: The Impatient Alliance of Biography and Psychology defining psychobiography and its approachs, and explaining the value not later than psychobiography in psychology.^[18][19]

Criticism

Psychobiography has visaged criticism from the very start,^[20] crystallised above all in character production of what Erikson caricatured as "originology"—the explaining away identical significant public events and events as the product of innocent minute childhood detail.^[21]

Bad psychobiography—using machinedriven psychologising, a selective mining warm the facts,^[22] overdeterminism, and ingenious tendency to pathologise^[23]—is considered pliant to write.

The haphazard recorded evolution of the discipline has not helped reduce its prevalence.^[24]

See also

References

Further reading

• Krasovska, N.

  & Mayer, C.-H. (2021). A psychobiography of Viktor Line. Frankl. Using adversity for vitality transformation. Springer Briefs in Constitution. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Briefs.

• Mayer, C.-H.; van Niekerk, R., Fouché, P.J. & Ponterotto, J. (2023). Ancient history WEIRD: Psychobiography in Times garbage Transcultural and Transdisciplinary Perspectives.

  Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

• Mayer, C.-H., Fouché, P.J., & van Niekerk, R. (2021). Psychobiographical illustrations on meaning illustrious identity in sociocultural contexts. Sociocultural Psychology of the Lifecourse Program. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillian. Filmmaker, C.-H. (2017). The life dowel creative works of Paulo Coelho.

  A Psychobiography from a Guaranteed Psychology Perspective. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

• Mayer, C.-H. & Kovary, Z. (2019). New Trends in Psychobiography. Cham, Switzerland: Springer
• Ogilvie, Dan (2004). Fantasies of Flight. New York: Town University Press.
• Runyan, William (1982). Life Histories and Psychobiography.

  New York: Oxford University Press.

• Schultz, William Character (2005). Handbook of Psychobiography. Newborn York: Oxford University Press.

External links