A Cautious Alliance: The Psychobiographer’s Relationship with Her/His Subject

Abstract

According to the classification of document sources in psychobiography, personal letters would constitute first person documents (Allport, 1942). Modern psychobiographers are called to follow best methodological and ethical practices as they engage in psychobiographical writing (Kasser, 2017; Schultz & Lawrence, 2017). [...]along with an explanation of each stage, we provide practical suggestions to the psychobiographer for navigating her or his relationship to the psychobiographical subject throughout the research process. [...]contemporary psychobiographers equipped with internet resources and an array of translation tools have access to significantly more accurate biographical and historical data than a century ago. [...]Freud identified with Leonardo and endowed the artist/inventor with some of his own characteristics.