Life themes: A theoretical and empirical exploration of their origins and effects

Abstract

Whenever a person's life is passed in review, either in an autobiography, a biography, a psychohistory, or a clinical report, a more or less implicit assumption is made that the life in question has a certain coherence, a form and purpose which is in some way uniquely different from that of others (Bühler and Massarik 1968; Pascal 1960). In fact a biography would be unimaginable if the life events of a person followed each other randomly or if they were determined only by the vector forces of genetics and social milieu. The assumption behind any biography is that the subject's actions over time reflect a unique theme played out against a wider background of historical themes.