Autobiography

Introduction

Autobiography constitutes a critical resource for psychological assessment and yet a complex challenge to it. The essence of this challenge lies in the fact that autobiography can be seen as both a focus of assessment and a means of conducting it. Since autobiography does not lend itself to assessment by instruments or scales, the sections in this entry will focus on general issues associated with the defining, assessing, and researching of autobiography, as well as on future developments concerning it.

Defining Autobiography

Autobiography is a narrative accounting of a person's life as interpreted or articulated by the person him or herself. It is a self-report by which a person expresses, explains, or explores his or her subjective experience over time. It thus represents a route to what it means and feels like to be that person, on the inside. Such a definition distinguishes immediately between autobiography and biography (an account of a life, presumably with greater objectivity, by someone else). An equivalent term for autobiography would be life story. This can in turn be distinguished from life history, or indeed case history, which is an account of a life for specific purposes by, for example, a social worker or physician.

Starting from this basic definition, autobiography can be categorized according to whether it is formal or informal. Though the distinction can be a fine one, formal autobiography means a deliberate and comparatively structured recounting of one's [Page 121]life with the express intention of summing it up to date or making a public statement concerning it. While the expression may take many forms, including poetry and sculpture, obvious examples range from a published memoir to a curriculum vitae. Informal autobiography includes what one reveals about oneself in less intentional ways, through one's speech, as in conversation or therapy, one's words, as in letters or diaries, or one's gestures and deeds. Behind both formal and informal autobiography lies one's autobiographical memory, or the memory one has of one's life as a whole (Rubin, 1996). However, insofar as such memory is internal to a person, assessments of its structure and possible impairments are impossible except as it is mediated by that person's actions or words. In this entry, then, ‘autobiography’ means any autobiographical activity that has some mode of external expression.

Additional distinctions by which autobiography can be categorized – and assessed – are whether it is voluntary (spontaneous, self-directed) or involuntary (requested, assigned); intended for a public audience or for private reflection; partial (concerning a particular period or theme in one's life) or complete (concerning one's life as a whole); superficial or in-depth; and whether the cue prompting it is specific or general (for example, What was it like growing up blind? or simply Tell me about your life).

Assessing Autobiography

What is assessed from autobiographical activity, the method or instrument by which the assessment is carried out, and the theoretical perspective(s) in which the assessment is rooted, depends on the discipline or context that is involved.

Within the context of psychology, the most obvious example of this point is in relation to psychotherapy, and not least to the field of psychoanalysis. While the assessment and interpretation of autobiography constitute an integral source of information about an individual and about possible issues or themes on which the analysis can focus, the focus itself depends on the therapeutic perspective that is employed. Accordingly, it may be on, for example, a person's self-concept; degree of introversion-extroversion; obvious omissions from the person's self-report and their possible significance; evidence of self-deception or of specific disorders; and/or locus of control.

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