Psychobiography is Trending Among Psychologists

Review of Claude-Hélène Mayer & Zoltan Kovary, eds., New Trends in Psychobiography (Springer Nature Switzerland AG: Springer International Publishing, 2019), ISBN 978-1-4128-1130, pages XVI, 523, hardbound, 103,99 €.

Just as life has its turning points, there are pivotal moments in the development of a Wissenschaft, or field of knowledge. Freud gave birth to psychobiography when he brought psychoanalytic insights to the life of Leonardo da Vinci. During its infancy, practitioners of psychobiography behaved recklessly, reducing complex lives to Oedipal theorems. Academic psychology marginalized the field, but by the 1980s it emerged into adulthood by improving its methodological rigor. This trajectory led to the 2005 volume edited by Todd Schultz, Handbook of Psychobiography. That was 15 years ago. Since then, psychobiography has grown internationally as a legitimate form of research. Now we encounter New Trends in Psychobiography (published by Springer Nature, under editors Claude-Hélène Mayer and Zoltán Kőváry), a volume that promises to be pivotal for the field’s growth.

The 500+ pages of New Trends are written by 36 authors hailing from North America, South Africa, and Europe. They furnish the most comprehensive and innovative set of discourses on psychobiography yet to date. There is plenty in New Trends for

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different types of readers to like. It covers four themes: the theoretical cornerstones of psychobiography; its methodological and epistemological possibilities; selected psychobiographies (e.g., of J. S. Bach); and interviews with five prominent psychobiographers who paint an accessible picture of the field. While the ideal audience for New Trends is likely anyone supervising or engaged in psychobiographical research, the volume will enrich syllabi related to qualitative research, personality theory, and the philosophy of science. It could also benefit clinicians, historians, journalists, pianists, and fans of Charlize Theron. This varied list of potential readers is a credit to the book’s ambitious spirit and inclusion of multiple perspectives. Reading New Trends, one gathers that psychobiography has entered the integrative, efficacious years of middle adulthood.

In the first theme’s opening chapter, James William Anderson and William L. Dunlop provide a guide for executing psychobiography, arguing that researchers should not shy away from illuminating a subject’s inner life. Psychodynamic investigations of dreams or autobiographical statements are fair game, if psychobiographers conduct an exhaustive review of a subject’s corpus and cultural context, selecting theories that render complexity rather than simplicity. The section’s ethos of investigative responsibility continues with a chapter by Joseph G. Ponterotto and Jason D. Reynolds (Taewon Choi), who have been the field’s leading advocates for placing ethics at the heart of psychobiography. The best practice model they present addresses informed consent and confidentiality, the field’s convergence with oral history and journalism, accountability to living persons, and navigating an Institutional Review Board (IRB).

For readers seeking to construct a methodologically robust psychobiography, the second section of New Trends offers numerous tools. A chapter by Frans Cilliers and co-editor Mayer outlines the application of Systems Psychodynamic theory, which offers psychobiographers the best of both worlds: micro and macro perspectives, Freudian drives, and systems theory. Similarly, a chapter by Zelda Gillian Knight presents an integrative orientation, a “Phenomenological-Hermeneutic Life-narrative Analysis,” begging psychobiographers to incorporate reflections on their own lived experience.

Theme two also considers psychobiography’s architecture. Barbara Burnell, Carla Nel, Paul J. P. Fouché, and Roelf van Niekerk critically answer an essential question: whom do I study?

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They argue for the systematic use of suitability indicators to help widen the pool of potential subjects (gone are the days, they hope, of choosing a subject simply because they’re famous). Another chapter, by Mayer and Michelle May, articulates how second wave positive psychology (PP2.0) may inform psychobiographies wishing to depict the lives of role models—people who healthily navigated the human condition.

If a distinguishing characteristic of adulthood is what Alfred Adler called Gemeinschaftsgefühl (social interest), then a measure of psychobiography’s maturity is its commitment to altruism. In a chapter that envisions the field’s outward turn, co-editor Kőváry asserts that psychobiography may serve as a bridge between academic and professional psychology. He describes a common predicament: many psychology students receive an education that privileges nomothetic research and the putative objectivity of logical positivism, but when they enter their first clinical placements and are expected to communicate with and about actual human beings, what’s required is a skillset that is decidedly more idiographic. Psychobiography, especially at the graduate level, can help mental health service providers lean into the interpretivistic nature of their work by cultivating what Kőváry calls, “educated subjectivity.”

The third section of New Trends contains 14 selected psychobiographical investigations. A number of them, informed by positive psychology and/or Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development, probe the lives of people who reconciled inner conflicts and made positive impacts on the world. These subjects include Georgia O’Keefe, Adam Small, Sol Plaatje, Coco Chanel, and Theron. A chapter by George E. Atwood on Johann Sebastian Bach connects the composer’s childhood experiences of death to his music’s palpable sense of eternity. Atwood includes hyperlinks to Bach’s music, conducting what might be psychobiography’s first listen-along. Complimenting the focus on the brighter aspects of humanity, the third section also inspects cult leader Jim Jones, who induced 900 of his followers to suicide. The chapter by James L. Kelley shows how psychobiography can surpass journalism in painting a “multidimensional portrait” of public figures; Kelley does not excuse Jones’ behavior, but does explore via object relations theory how Jones felt ambivalence toward those to whom he acted as “caregiver.”

To a degree, New Trends continues a longstanding trend of psychobiography: about half of the subjects in the volume’s third

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section are White and male and all, apparently, are heterosexual. Furthermore, multiple authors promote attention to cultural factors, yet a chapter whose sole focus is a 21^st century discussion of intersectionality, privilege, and cultural humility is lacking. Nevertheless, the voices in New Trends are more heterogeneous than previous books on psychobiography, and one chapter, in particular, demonstrates the field’s potential to engage with social justice.

Sharon Johnson’s chapter, “Psychobiography as a Research Methodology for Advocacy of Abused and Neglected Youth in South Africa,” is a fresh trend. Instead of a western theoretical orientation, it employs a multi-layered, indigenous African psychology. Johnson elevates a traditionally marginalized voice, a boy who experienced childhood maltreatment and fell through the cracks of a system whose legacy involves colonialism and institutionalized racism, but who ultimately successfully engaged with a mental health service provider, resulting in his psychosocial reintegration. For any therapist who knows that recovery from complex trauma is more than symptom-reduction, this chapter provides a roadmap that corresponds with the territory.

Alongside Kőváry’s chapter, Johnson’s embodies a pivotal moment: psychobiography’s outward turn. Erik Erikson said that a successful transition to adulthood is characterized by generativity. New Trends demonstrates that the tradition of psychobiography is increasingly able to contribute to academic psychology, clinicians of all stripes, and humanity’s understanding of itself. For those interested, psychobiography pledges an educated subjectivity, a research method that judiciously accesses the inner lives of people, and the pleasure of multidimensional portraits of the good, the bad, and the ugly.

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