Psychobiography aims to understand historically significant individuals, such asartists orpolitical leaders, through the application ofpsychological theory and research.
Through its merging ofpersonality psychology and historical evidence,[1] psychobiography may be considered a historical form of therapeuticcase study: it represents a growing field in the realm ofbiography.[2]Psychopathography is sometimes used as a term to indicate that the person being analyzed was not mentally healthy, "path" coming frompathos (πάθος)—Ancient Greek for suffering or illness.
Psychobiography is a field within the realms ofpsychology andbiography that analyzes the lives of historically significant individuals through psychological theory and research. Its goal is to develop a better understanding of notable individuals byapplying psychological theories to their biographies to further explain the motives behind some of the subjects actions and decisions. Popular subjects of psychobiographies include figures such asAdolf Hitler,Vincent van Gogh,William Shakespeare,Martin Luther King Jr.,Abraham Lincoln, andSaddam Hussein. A typical biography is often very descriptive, and tries to record every notable event that happened in a person's lifetime, whereas a psychobiography primarily focuses on some particular events, and tries to better understand why they happened. This field's potential has not only aided in developing a better understanding to many notable biographies throughout history, but has also inspired direction and insight into the field of psychology.
One of the first great examples of this field's utility was Dr.Henry Murray's report on the analysis of Adolf Hitler's personality during the end ofWorld War II. Forced to psychoanalyze from a distance, Dr. Murray used multiple sources, including Hitler's genealogy, Hitler's own writings, and biographies of Hitler, so that the Allied forces could understand his personality to better predict his behavior. By applying a theory of personality that consisted of 20 psychogenic needs, Dr. Murray presumed Hitler's personality as "counteractive narcism", and was able to correctly predict the German leader's suicide in the face of his country's defeat. This work by Dr. Murray not only helped establish personality psychology as a behavioral science, but it also showed how the field of psychobiography could be applied as a means of psychoanalysis.[3]
Persons who have been the subject of psychobiographical research includeFreud,Adolf Hitler,[4]Sylvia Plath,Carl Jung,Vincent van Gogh,[5]Martin Luther,[6]Abraham Lincoln,Elvis Presley,Søren Kierkegaard,Friedrich Nietzsche,[7]Andrew Jackson,Richard Nixon,[8] andIgnatius of Loyola.[9]
Major psychobiographical authors includeErik Erikson,[10] James William Anderson,[11]Henry Murray,[12]George E. Atwood,[13] and William Runyan.[14]
Many psychobiographies areFreudian orpsychodynamic in orientation, but other commonly used theories include narrative models of identity such as the life story model,script theory,object relations, andexistentialism/phenomenology; and psychobiographers are increasingly looking for explanatory complexity through an eclectic approach.[15]
Though there were other psychobiographies written beforeFreud'sLeonardo da Vinci, A Memory of His Childhood in 1910, it is considered the most significant contribution of its time, despite its flaws. Psychobiographies aboutWilliam Shakespeare (Jones, 1910),Giovanni Segantini (Abraham, 1912),Richard Wagner (Graf, 1911),Amenhotep IV (Abraham, 1912),Martin Luther (Smith, 1913), andSocrates (Karpas, 1915) were also published between 1910 and 1915, but are not as well known.[16] Between 1920 and 1926, psychobiographies ofMargaret Fuller (Anthony, 1920),Samuel Adams (Harlow, 1923),Edgar Allan Poe (Krutch, 1926), andAbraham Lincoln (Clark, 1923) were published by authors from a psychoanalytic perspective without a background in psychoanalysis. During the 1930sTolstoy,Dostoevsky,Molière,Sand,Goethe,Coleridge,Nietzsche, Poe,Rousseau,Caesar, Lincoln,Napoleon,Darwin, andAlexander the Great were the subjects of psychobiographies, and soon afterward in 1943 a psychobiography ofAdolf Hitler, predicting his suicide, was written during World War II, but was not published until 1972. Recent, significant contributions between 1960 and 1990 include psychobiographies ofHenry James (Edel, 1953–72),Isaac Newton (Manuel, 1968),Mohandas Gandhi (Erikson, 1969),Max Weber (Mitzman, 1969),Emily Dickinson (Cody, 1971),Joseph Stalin (Tucker, 1973),James andJohn Stuart Mill (Mazlish, 1975),T. E. Lawrence (Mack, 1976), Adolf Hitler (Waite, 1977),Beethoven (Solomon, 1977),Samuel Johnson (Bate, 1977),Alice James (Strouse, 1980),Wilhelm Reich (Sharaf, 1983), andWilliam James (Feinstein, 1984).[17] Some psychobiographies at this time were also written about groups of people, focusing on an aspect they had in common such as American presidents, philosophers, utopians, revolutionary leaders, and personality theorists. These psychobiographies are the most well known, but since 1910 there have been over 4000 psychobiographies published.[16]
As psychobiography gained recognition, authors from a variety of professions contributed their own work from alternate perspectives and varying methods of analysis of the psychobiographical subjects, significantly expanding psychobiography beyond thepsychoanalytical perspective. Apart from psychoanalysts andpsychiatrists who wrote the first psychobiographies, there have been historians,political scientists,personality psychologists, literary critics,sociologists, andanthropologists that have contributed to the growth of the field.[16]Psychobiography has also conflicted with contemporary views of science since its origin because it contains no controlled variables or experimentation. In its early years it was dismissed as unscientific and not a legitimate addition to the field ofpsychology due to the push towards experimentation focused on physiological and biological factors, and away from philosophical psychology, to establish it as a natural science. The value of psychobiography to psychology is comparable toforensic science andarchaeology, offering detailed analyses of subjects with an emphasis on contextual information, but due to the qualitative nature of this information it remains a challenge to validate psychobiographical works as empirically based applications of psychology.[17]
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The discipline of psychobiography has developed various methodological guidelines for psychobiographical study. Some of the most prominent are these:
Scholars untrained in the discipline who do not follow these guidelines continue to produce psychobiographical studies.
Freud's psychoanalytic approach (Freudian perspective) is not commonly used in its entirety in psychobiography, but it has had a lasting influence on the analysis of behavior in other areas of psychology. To sift through a lifetime of information and locate significant areas in the subject's development requires a system of identification, and psychoanalysis provided the base for this. Primacy, the initial exposure or experience, was recognized by Freud as an important factor in personality development and has remained an important aspect of personality psychology,psychotherapy, and psychobiography. Frequency, repeated exposure or actions, is also important, but its significance can vary. If the frequency of an action is low then it is seen as unimportant, and if the frequency is too high it becomes passive and overlooked, also becoming less important in psychobiography. Freud's knowledge of the importance of frequency is shown in the analysis of dreams, slips, errors, and humor by recognizing that repetition leads people to disregard these behaviors or stimuli. The importance of error in psychobiography, includingslips and distortions, is also rooted in Freudian psychoanalysis and is used to identify hidden motives.[19]
Elms has contributed to psychobiography through many published works including psychobiographies onAllport (1972), Freud (1980),Skinner (1981), andMurray (1987). He has also written about the subject of psychobiography inPsychobiography and Case Study Methods andUncovering Lives: The Uneasy Alliance of Biography and Psychology defining psychobiography and its methods, and explaining the value of psychobiography in psychology.[20][21]
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Claude-Hélène Mayer is a psychobiographer whose research combines psychology, management, and cultural anthropology. Her work examines psychobiography from an interdisciplinary perspective.
Mayer applies complex psychological theories, such as Jungian analysis, existential psychology, and intercultural psychology, to the lives of prominent individuals. Her work often explores the interplay of culture, identity, and meaning-making, providing nuanced portraits that go beyond surface-level biography.[22][23] She further investigates subjects from diverse cultural backgrounds and emphasizes the role of sociocultural context in psychological development. This positions her work at the intersection of psychobiography and intercultural psychology, a space few have explored with such rigor. She has contributed to bring psychobiography and the non-WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic) approach closer together[24] and her work is known for its depth and scholarly precision. Finally, she has contributed to expand the psychobiographical research methodology, highlighting the importance to use interdisciplinary theories, positive psychology and existential psychology[25] as tools in the psychobiographical analysis. She is further a pioneer in emphasising the importance of "Lessons learned" from psychobiography.[26][27]
Psychobiography has faced criticism from the very start,[28] crystallised above all in the production of what Erikson caricatured as "originology"—the explaining away of significant public events and actions as the product of some minute childhood detail.[29]
Bad psychobiography—using mechanical psychologising, a selective mining of the facts,[30] overdeterminism, and a tendency to pathologise[31]—is considered easy to write. The haphazard historical evolution of the discipline has not helped reduce its prevalence.[32]
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