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==Origins and development== Persons who have been the subject of psychobiographical research include [[Sigmund Freud|Freud]], [[Adolf Hitler]],<ref>Waite, Robert G.L. ''[[The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler]].'' New York: First DaCapo Press Edition, (1993) (orig. pub. 1977). {{ISBN|0-306-80514-6}}</ref> [[Sylvia Plath]], [[Carl Jung]], [[Vincent van Gogh]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Meissner |first1=William W. |title=Vincent's Religion: The Search for Meaning |date=1997 |publisher=Lang |location=New York Washington, DC/Baltimore Bern Frankfurt am Main Berlin Vienna Paris |isbn=978-0820433905}}</ref> [[Martin Luther]],<ref>G, R, Elton, ''The Practice of History'' (1969) p. 39</ref> [[Abraham Lincoln]], [[Elvis Presley]], [[Søren Kierkegaard]], [[Friedrich Nietzsche]],<ref>Safranski, Rüdiger. ''[[Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography]]'' Granta Books, London, (2002); Vienna, (2000); New York (2002) {{ISBN|0-393-05008-4}}</ref> [[Andrew Jackson]], [[Richard Nixon]],<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Volkan |first1=Vamik D. |title=Richard Nixon: A Psychobiography |last2=Itzkowitz |first2=Norman |last3=Dod |first3=Andrew W. |date=1997 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=0231108540 |location=New York |language=English}}</ref> and [[Ignatius of Loyola]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Meissner |first1=William W. |title=Ignatius of Loyola: The Psychology of a Saint |date=1994 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |isbn=0300060793}}</ref> Major psychobiographical authors include [[Erik Erikson]],<ref>Carducci, p. 197</ref> James William Anderson,<ref>{{Cite web |title=James Anderson |url=https://chicagoanalysis.org/faculty/james-anderson/ |access-date=2023-10-25 |website=Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute |language=en}}</ref> [[Henry Murray]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Henry Alexander Murray {{!}} Encyclopedia.com |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/medicine/psychology-and-psychiatry-biographies/henry-alexander-murray |access-date=2023-10-25 |website=www.encyclopedia.com}}</ref> [[George E. Atwood]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Atwood |first1=George E. |last2=Tomkins |first2=Silvan S. |date=April 1976 |title=On the Subjectivity of Personality Theory |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/1520-6696(197604)12:23.0.CO;2-Y |journal=Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences |language=en |volume=12 |issue=2 |pages=166–177 |doi=10.1002/1520-6696(197604)12:2<166::aid-jhbs2300120208>3.0.co;2-y|pmid=1029746 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> and William Runyan.<ref>{{Cite web |title=William Runyan {{!}} Berkeley Social Welfare |url=https://socialwelfare.berkeley.edu/people/william-runyan |access-date=2023-10-25 |website=socialwelfare.berkeley.edu}}</ref> Many psychobiographies are [[Psychoanalysis|Freudian]] or [[Psychodynamics|psychodynamic]] in orientation, but other commonly used theories include narrative models of identity such as the life story model, [[script theory]], [[Object relations theory|object relations]], and [[existentialism]]/[[Existential phenomenology|phenomenology]]; and psychobiographers are increasingly looking for explanatory complexity through an eclectic approach.<ref>Alan C. Elms, ''Uncovering Lives'' (1997) p. 9</ref> Though there were other psychobiographies written before [[Freud]]'s ''[[Leonardo da Vinci, A Memory of His Childhood]]'' in 1910, it is considered the most significant contribution of its time, despite its flaws. Psychobiographies about [[William Shakespeare]] (Jones, 1910), [[Giovanni Segantini]] (Abraham, 1912), [[Richard Wagner]] (Graf, 1911), [[Amenhotep IV]] (Abraham, 1912), [[Martin Luther]] (Smith, 1913), and [[Socrates]] (Karpas, 1915) were also published between 1910 and 1915, but are not as well known.<ref name="Runyan">Runyan, W., M. (1988). Progress in psychobiography. Journal of Personality, 56, 295-326.</ref> Between 1920 and 1926, psychobiographies of [[Margaret Fuller]] (Anthony, 1920), [[Samuel Adams]] (Harlow, 1923), [[Edgar Allan Poe]] (Krutch, 1926), and [[Abraham Lincoln]] (Clark, 1923) were published by authors from a psychoanalytic perspective without a background in psychoanalysis. During the 1930s [[Tolstoy]], [[Dostoevsky]], [[Molière]], [[George Sand|Sand]], [[Goethe]], [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge|Coleridge]], [[Nietzsche]], Poe, [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau|Rousseau]], [[Caesar]], Lincoln, [[Napoleon]], [[Charles Darwin|Darwin]], and [[Alexander the Great]] were the subjects of psychobiographies, and soon afterward in 1943 a psychobiography of [[Adolf Hitler]], predicting his suicide, was written during World War II, but was not published until 1972. Recent, significant contributions between 1960 and 1990 include psychobiographies of [[Henry James]] (Edel, 1953–72), [[Isaac Newton]] (Manuel, 1968), [[Mohandas Gandhi]] (Erikson, 1969), [[Max Weber]] (Mitzman, 1969), [[Emily Dickinson]] (Cody, 1971), [[Joseph Stalin]] (Tucker, 1973), [[James Mill|James]] and [[John Stuart Mill]] ([[Bruce Mazlish|Mazlish]], 1975), [[T. E. Lawrence]] (Mack, 1976), Adolf Hitler (Waite, 1977), [[Beethoven]] (Solomon, 1977), [[Samuel Johnson]] (Bate, 1977), [[Alice James]] (Strouse, 1980), [[Wilhelm Reich]] (Sharaf, 1983), and [[William James]] (Feinstein, 1984).<ref name="Schultz">[[William Todd Schultz|Schultz, W., T.]] (2005). Handbook of psychobiography. New York, NY: Oxford University Press</ref> Some psychobiographies at this time were also written about groups of people, focusing on an aspect they had in common such as American presidents, philosophers, utopians, revolutionary leaders, and personality theorists. These psychobiographies are the most well known, but since 1910 there have been over 4000 psychobiographies published.<ref name="Runyan" /> As psychobiography gained recognition, authors from a variety of professions contributed their own work from alternate perspectives and varying methods of analysis of the psychobiographical subjects, significantly expanding psychobiography beyond the [[psychoanalysis|psychoanalytical perspective]]. Apart from psychoanalysts and [[Psychiatry|psychiatrists]] who wrote the first psychobiographies, there have been historians, [[political science|political scientists]], [[personality psychology|personality psychologists]], literary critics, [[sociology|sociologists]], and [[anthropology|anthropologists]] that have contributed to the growth of the field.<ref name="Runyan" /> Psychobiography has also conflicted with contemporary views of science since its origin because it contains no controlled variables or experimentation. In its early years it was dismissed as unscientific and not a legitimate addition to the field of [[psychology]] due to the push towards experimentation focused on physiological and biological factors, and away from philosophical psychology, to establish it as a natural science. The value of psychobiography to psychology is comparable to [[forensic science]] and [[archaeology]], offering detailed analyses of subjects with an emphasis on contextual information, but due to the qualitative nature of this information it remains a challenge to validate psychobiographical works as empirically based applications of psychology.<ref name="Schultz" />
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