Abstract
By nature of their interests and professional training, counsellors are ideally equipped to conduct psychobiographical research. This article positions the counselling field in the broad specialty area of psychobiography, highlights the preparedness of counsellors to conduct psychobiographical research, and emphasizes the benefits of this research endeavor to counsellors themselves and to the counselling profession. A ten-step guide to conducting and publishing psychobiography is presented.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alexander, I. E. (1990). Personology: Method and content in personality assessment and psychobiography. Durham: Duke University Press.
Allport, G. W. (1942). The use of personal documents in psychological science. New York: Social Science Research Council.
Allport, G. A. (1965). Letters from Jenny. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
American Counseling Association. (2014). ACA code of ethics. Alexandria: ACA.
American Psychiatric Association. (1976). The psychiatrist as psychohistorian. Task force report #11. Washington: Author.
Anderson, J. W. (1981a). Psychobiographical methodology: the case of William James. Review of Personality and Social Psychology, 2, 245–271.
Anderson, J. W. (1981b). The methodology of psychological biography. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 11, 455–475.
Anderson, J. W. (2003). Recent psychoanalytic theorists and their relevance to psychobiography: Winnicott, Kernberg, and Kohut. Annual of Psychoanalysis, 31, 79–94.
Arnett, J. J. (2004). Emerging adulthood: The winding road from the late teens through the twenties. New York: Oxford University Press.
Barenbaum, N. B., & Winter, D. G. (2013). Personality. In D. K. Freedheim & I. B. Weiner (Eds.), Handbook of psychology, History of psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 198–223). New York: Wiley.
Berg, J. (2001). Grave secrets: legal and ethical analysis of postmortem confidentiality. Connecticut Law Review, 81, 1–40.
Brawer, M., Kim P., Wertentheil, A., & Ponterotto, J. G. (2016). Cultural historiography and psychobiography: Embracing social media tools. Poster presented at the annual Teachers College, Columbia University, Winter roundtable on multicultural psychology and education, New York City.
Dooley, L. (1916). Psychoanalytic studies of genius. American Journal of Psychology, 27, 363–416.
du Plessis, C. (2017). The method of psychobiography: presenting a step-wide approach. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 14, 216–237.
Elms, A. C. (1994). Uncovering lives: The uneasy alliance of biography and psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.
Elms, A. C. (2005). If the glove fits: The art of theoretical choice in psychobiography. In W. T. Schultz (Ed.), Handbook of psychobiography (pp. 84–95). New York: Oxford University Press.
Elms, A. C. (2007). Psychobiography and case study methods. In R. W. Robins, R. C. Fraley, & R. F. Krueger (Eds.), Handbook of research methods in personality psychology (pp. 97–113). New York: Guilford.
Elovitz, P. H. (2016a). A Psychobiographical and psycho-political comparison of Clinton and Trump. The Journal of Psychohistory, 44, 90–113.
Elovitz, P. H. (2016b). Reflections on Trump’s celebrity politics and psychobiography. Clio’s Psyche, 22, 277–285.
Erikson, E. H. (1958). Young man Luther. A study in psychoanalysis and history. New York: Norton.
Erikson, E. E. (1968). On the nature of psychohistorical evidence: In search of Gandhi. Daedalus, 97, 695–730.
Erikson, E. H. (1969). Gandhi’s truth: On the origins of militant nonviolence. New York: Norton.
Fancher, R. E. (1998). Biography and psychodynamic theory: some lessons from the life of Francis Galton. History of Psychology, 2, 99–115.
Fassinger, R. E. (2005). Paradigms, praxis, problems, and promise: grounded theory in counseling psychology research. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 52, 156–166.
Fearing, F. (1927). Psychological studies of historical personalities. Psychological Bulletin, 24, 529–536.
Fouché, P. (2015a). The ‘coming of age’ for southern African psychobiography. Journal of Psychology in Africa, 25, 375–378.
Freud, S. (1910/1957). Leonardo da Vinci and a memory of his childhood. In Strachey, J. S. (Ed., & trans.) The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 11. Original work published in 1910.
Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory. Mill Valley: Sociology Press.
Hays, D. G., Wood, C., Dahl, H., & Kirk-Jenkins, A. (2016). Methodological rigor in Journal of Counseling & Development qualitative research articles: A 15-year review. Journal of Counseling and Development, 94, 172–183.
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. (HIPAA). Pub. I. No. 104–191.
Hofling, C. K. (1976). Current problems in psychohistory. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 17, 227–239.
Kasser, T. (2013). Lucy in the mind of Lennon. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kasser, T. (2017). Introduction to the special section: Integrating psychobiography into psychology’s mainstream. American Psychologist. (in press).
Kőváry, Z. (2011). Psychobiography as a method. The revival of studying lives: new perspectives in personality and creativity research. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 7, 739–777.
Langer, W. C. (1972). The mind of Adolph Hitler. New York: Basic Books.
Larson, A. (2003). Defamation, libel, and slander law. http://www.expertlaw.com/library/personal_injury/defamation.html#3.
Levinson, D. J. (1978). The seasons of a man's life. New York: Ballantine Books.
McAdams, D. P. (2011). George W. Bush and the redemptive dream: A psychological portrait. New York: Oxford University Press.
McAdams, D. P. (2016). The mind of Donald Trump. The Atlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/the-mind-of-donald-trump/480771/.
Murray, H. A. (1967). Dead to the world: On the passions of Herman Melville. In E. J. Schneidman (Ed.), Essays in self-destruction (pp. 7–29). New York: Science House.
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. (1964). 376 U. S. 254.
Ponterotto, J. G. (2012). A psychobiography of Bobby Fischer: Understanding the genius, mystery, and psychological decline of a world chess champion. Springfield: Charles C Thomas, Publisher.
Ponterotto, J. G. (2013). Case study in psychobiographical ethics: Bobby Fischer, world chess champion. Journal of Empirical Research in Human Research Ethics, 8, 19–27.
Ponterotto, J. G. (2014a). Best practices in psychobiographical research. Qualitative Psychology, 1, 77–90.
Ponterotto, J. G. (2014b). The art and craft of psychobiography. Counseling Today, 56(9), 54–62.
Ponterotto, J. G. (2015). Psychobiography in psychology: Past, present, and future. Journal of Psychology in Africa, 25, 379–389.
Ponterotto, J. G. (2017). John F. Kennedy, Jr. and the torn self: A psychological portrait. The Journal of Psychohistory, 44, 221–241.
Ponterotto, J. G., & Reynolds, J. D. (2013). The “genius” and “madness” of Bobby Fischer: His life from three psychobiographical lenses. Review of General Psychology, 17, 384–398. doi:10.1037/a0033246.
Ponterotto, J. G., & Reynolds, J. D. (2017). Ethical and legal considerations in psychobiography. American Psychologist. (in press).
Ponterotto, J. G., Reynolds, J. D., Morel, S., & Cheung, L. (2015). Psychobiography training in psychology: Mapping the field and charting a course. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 11, 459–474. doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.938.
Post, J. M. (1991). Saddam Hussein of Iraq: A political psychology profile. Political Psychology, 12, 279–289.
Ross, C. A. (2015). A psychological profile of Osama bin Laden. The Journal of Psychohistory, 42, 310–319.
Runyan, W. M. (1981). Why did van Gogh cut off his ear? the problem of alternative explanations in psychobiography. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40, 1070–1077.
Runyan, W. M. (1982). Life histories and psychobiography: explorations in theory and method. New York: Oxford University Press.
Schultz, W. T. (Ed.). (2005a). Handbook of psychobiography. New York: Oxford University Press.
Schultz, W. T. (2005b). Introducing psychobiography. In W. T. Schultz (Ed.), Handbook of psychobiography (pp. 3–18). New York: Oxford University Press.
Schultz, W. T. (2011). Tiny terror: Why Truman Capote (almost) wrote answered prayers. New York: Oxford University Press.
Schultz, W. T. (2014). The psychobiography of genius. In D. K. Simonton (Ed.), The Wiley handbook of genius (pp. 20–32). New York: Wiley.
Schultz, W. T., & Lawrence, S. (2017). Psychobiography: Theory and method. American Psychologist. (in press).
Sharma, D. (2011). Barack Obama in Hawai’i and Indonesia: The making of a global president. New York: Praeger.
Simonton, D. K. (1998). Mad King George: The impact of personal and political stress on mental and physical health. Journal of Personality, 66, 443–466.
Simonton, D. K. (2015). Thomas Edison’s creative career; the multilayered trajectory of trials, errors, failures, and triumphs. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 2, 2–14.
Song, A. V., & Simonton, D. K. (2007). Personality assessment at a distance. In R. W. Robins, R. C. Fraley, & R. F. Krueger (Eds.), Handbook of research methods in personality psychology (pp. 308–321). New York: Guilford.
Stroud, L. (2004). A psychobiographical study of mother Theresa (unpublished doctoral thesis). Port Elizabeth: University of Port Elizabeth.
Tomkins, S. S. (1987). Script theory. In J. Aronoff, A. I. Rabin, & R. A. Zucker (Eds.), The emergence of personality (pp. 147–216). New York: Springer.
The Historical Figures Assessment Collaborative. (1977). Assessing historical figures: The use of observer-based personality descriptions. Historical Records Newsletter, 10, 66–76.
Winnicott, D. W. (1965). The maturational processes and the facilitating environment. New York: International University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
I declare that I have no conflict of interest in preparing or submitting this manuscript and that this manuscript is not under review with any other journal.
Funding
There is no funding support related to this manuscript.
Appendix
Appendix
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ponterotto, J.G. A Counsellor’s Guide to Conducting Psychobiographical Research. Int J Adv Counselling 39, 249–263 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10447-017-9295-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10447-017-9295-x