Psychobiography
In Search of the Inner Life
Published on 8. October 2024
280 pages
978-0-19-760210-2 (ISBN)
Description
Biographies are at their best when they convey that the subject is a three-dimensional human being who possesses an inner life. Psychobiography: In Search of the Inner Life offers tools for using psychological approaches when writing biography.. A leader in the field, James William Anderson, analyzes the effective use of psychology and what can go wrong, such as treating the biographical subject reductively, and failing to account for both historical and cultural context. Anderson recommends using psychology to open up, not close down; to provide new questions, not easy answers; to complicate, not simplify.
His lively inquiry into the art of biography--with its vignettes about people such as Oprah Winfrey, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Henry James, Simone de Beauvoir, Edith Wharton, and Anaïs Nin--will appeal to all readers who are curious about the lives of fascinating personages.
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Book
12/2024
Oxford University Press Inc
€91.50
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Person
James William Anderson is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University. There he teaches courses on Personality Psychology and the Psychology of Film. He also serves on the faculty of the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute. He received degrees from Princeton University, Harvard University, and the University of Chicago. For several decades, as a licensed clinical psychologist, he has conducted psychotherapy. In his research, he focuses on psychobiography and has published pieces on William and Henry James, Abraham Lincoln, Edith Wharton, Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, D. W. Winnicott, Woodrow Wilson, and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Content
Chapter 1 Introduction: In Search of the Inner Life
Chapter 2 Research, the Foundation of Psychobiography
Chapter 3 Research Materials of Special Value to the Psychobiographer
Chapter 4 The Relationship of Psychobiographers with Their Subjects
Chapter 5 The Relevance of Culture to Psychobiography
Chapter 6 Use Psychological Theory, Don't Let It Use You
Chapter 7 Narrative Identity for Psychobiographers (written with Dan P. McAdams)
Chapter 8 Analysis and Interpretation in Psychobiography
Chapter 9 Psychobiography of Literary Artists
Chapter 10 Executing Psychobiography: The Case of William and Henry James
Chapter 11 Why Might a Psychobiography Go Wrong?
References
Index
