Conference Agenda

In recent years, psychobiography, the study of distinct lives, has been revitalized, adopting a variety of theoretical lenses or prisms. It has been described as case study research with complete lives, and is now included as a subject in the curriculum of a growing list of psychology departments worldwide. Endorsement of postmodern methods of qualitative inquiry for psychobiography, like the narrative approach to the study of lives, has further widened the field. We use psychobiography in the training of therapists to help achieve several goals, one of them being their learning of qualitative research methods in action, with emphasis in narrative inquiry: from asking research questions with possible implications for counselling and therapy, to forming small study groups, to field work or archive search, to conducting analysis and presenting findings to conferences and/or publishing it. We conduct narrative analysis of form and/or content, but also visual narrative analysis with emphasis on themes. In terms of data, we favor the study of first-person narratives and/or artifacts (diaries, letters, full autobiographies or autobiographical writings, early memories, interviews, self-portraits etc). Even though one might see life stories under the prism of either redemption or contamination, depending on longevity and death cause (e.g. natural causes or suicide), we treat them all as stories of resilience, given their histories of hardship and trauma. Short examples are presented with an emphasis on the variety of narrative inquiry methods used and the importance of learning in action.

The famous Greek photographer Ellie Sougioultzoglou-Seraidari (Nelly’s) (1899-1998) was born in Aidini (Asia Minor), and in her early years she experienced the tragic events of the Greek-Turkish War (1919-1923). She studied photography in Dresden (Germany), and worked in Athens (Greece) and New York (U.S.A.). A narrative and cultural psychology framework was adopted to explore the way that Nelly’s constructed her life story. An adjusted version of the “Life-Story Interview” (McAdams & Bowman, 2001) was used that distinguishes between redemption versus contamination narratives. The narrative analysis of autobiographical materials revealed turning points and a central life theme. The photographer appeared to construct her life story as a process of reinventing herself or managing “rebirth”. This construction matches the dominant narrative of Greek refugees of Asia Minor, following what is known in European history as the Asia Minor “Great Catastrophe” (1922). Both narratives are surviving and thriving stories of “rebirth”. The importance of making meaning of life stories within a specific socio-cultural and historical context is emphasized.

In this visual-narrative psychobiography study, we examine the life of the recently discovered street photographer Vivian Maier (1926-2009) of Austrian-French origin, who made a living as a nanny in the USA. There is limited information on her life that was possibly marked by early trauma, and no witnesses to her photographic activity. In our study we adopt a narrative psychology framework to look into her self-portraits, and understand how Maier constructed herself through time. Following principles of visual narrative analysis, we examined a series of published self-portraits, placing them in temporal sequence. We observed the development of one life theme (“I as photographer”), reflecting the effort to narratively construct a self that makes meaning. Over more than three decades, this life theme followed a progressive story-line initially, with Vivian Maier gradually exposing her face and leaving the camera aside, but a regressive story-line later, with her camera rather than her face gaining central position and with both of them disappearing eventually. We discuss the findings with emphasis placed in the many forms of repeated self-portrayal as meaning-making, but also in the limitations of making meaning of the self in solitude.

Francesca Woodman (1958–1981) was an American photographer who achieved posthumous fame after her suicide at age 22 and is now regarded as an “icon” and “rock star of contemporary photography.” Our study approached her life and work through a three-level narrative analysis. The first level examined recurring patterns in photographs, videos, and self-narratives, triangulated with the family story as depicted in the documentary The Woodmans. All members of the family were artists striving for recognition. A central theme that emerged was visibility/invisibility, linked both to Francesca’s personal experience of acceptance and rejection and to broader family dynamics. The second level focused on her final self-published photo-book, compared with an earlier one created during her time in Rome. Using a coding system for self-portrait analysis, we observed a sharp decline in psychological progression markers. This decline mirrored a visual and symbolic transition: from concrete motifs toward abstract geometries where identity appears to dissolve into impersonal forms. The third level analyzed diary entries, letters, and notes from the same photo-books. Here, too, we found a shift: decreasing self-reflexivity and internal markers, alongside growing reliance on metaphorical and externalized expressions, some foreshadowing her death. Overall, findings suggest that Woodman’s struggle with visibility and invisibility intensified in her final works, evolving into a fragmented symbolic language that reflected deepening existential isolation and withdrawal from tangible reality. The analysis carries clinical implications for understanding suffering and for supporting suicide prevention.