Autobiographical Study Research Articles

Heinz Kohut: The Making of a Psychoanalyst

Heinz Kohut: The Making of a Psychoanalyst

The Derriford Appearance Scale (DAS59): a new psychometric scale for the evaluation of patients with disfigurements and aesthetic problems of appearance

The DAS59 has been designed and developed to meet the need for an objective measure of the spectrum of psychological distress and dysfunction that is characteristic of disfigurements, deformities and aesthetic problems of appearance. Content validity has been assured by basing the scale's items on a detailed autobiographical study of representative patients. Internal consistency is high (0.98) and test-retest reliabilities are good (general population: 0.75; clinical population: 0.86). Correlations with other appropriate standardised tests show good criterion validity and good construct validity. Factor analysis of 2741 data sets (general population and clinical population) identified three factors that are not feature specific and two that are (bodily and sexual features, facial features). The DAS59 thus generates a full-scale score and five factorial sub-scale scores. The DAS59 has been standardised on the clinical population across a range of patient groups and on the general population subdivided into those concerned and those not concerned about appearance. The DAS59 is highly sensitive as a measure of change following treatment with large and significant preoperative-postoperative reductions in full-scale and factorial scores of patients treated for facial features or bodily/sexual features. The DAS59 offers benefits for patient selection in both cosmetic and reconstructive plastic surgery and in the evaluation of outcome. It provides valid and reliable data for clinical audit and governance and for evaluating the merits of one treatment protocol against another.

Learning How to be a Music Teacher: An autobiographical case study

In this case study the author outlines how he 'learnt' to be a primary school music teacher. An autobiographical research design, using phenomenology as an analysis tool, is used to determine the nature of this learning. This learning encompasses experiences at teachers college, the influence of a relative who was a primary school classroom music teacher, knowledge gained from non-music teachers and administrators when teaching in schools, and finally knowledge gained when undertaking in-service. Each of these areas is discussed, with reference to the author's autobiographical narrative, interviews conducted and relevant research literature. Possible implications for teachers, music teacher educators and employers of music teachers are discussed.

Undisciplining Psychology through Pedagogy: An autobiographical case study of working knowledge

This paper is an analysis of my experience as an academic with a background in psychology (both general and developmental), and a scholarly and practical engagement with adult education. My purpose is to examine the story of my pedagogical practices as an academic engaged in teaching psychology to adult educators. In this story I identify two broad moves: firstly the move from disciplinary knowledge to applied knowledge, and to what may be termed "working knowledge"; secondly the move from the subject of psychology (and pedagogy) being regarded as the rational, autonomous, essential self; to the socially constructed self; and then to the relational self. Each move is depicted in terms of changes in: prevailing institutional values; the way the subject of psychology (and pedagogy) is configured; the relationship between theory and practice (or context); and the way competing paradigms in psychology are seen. I argue that practitioners need to constantly reassess their commitments and views in relation to changing circumstances, and that this is a key feature of "working knowledge".

Becoming Teacher: Student teaching as identity construction

This article presents an autobiographical qualitative study. A former elementary school teacher describes how her work as a university supervisor gave her an opportunity to examine her own construction of self as a teacher and teacher educator during two semesters of undergraduate student teaching. Research related to teacher individualism and isolation provides a lens through which to explore socialization experiences of both the author and her students. The analysis finds that some programs and schools do not allow for or value the critical dialogue and narrative discourse essential for the formation of the self. The author makes several suggestions for teacher education programs which will help prepare teachers to take advantage of agentive moments, creating spaces for discourse and collaboration.

Transacting with autobiography to transform the learning and teaching of elementary science

This is an autobiographical case study that examines the multiple ways autobiography informed the restructuring of science education in my elementary classroom. I weave together the biographies of scientists captured in written text with the autobiographies of science students composed orally as they coparticipated in science investigations. Highlights of my own autobiography about learning that science is a tool for knowing are juxtaposed with narratives from college and elementary students whose childhood passions and worldviews framed their self-selected science inquiries. Using journals, transcriptions of interviews, and electronic mail archives, I document with thick description how I provided a voice to students and used their perspectives to construct a teaching framework for elementary science education.

My journey from wool research to insulin.

This paper is an autobiographical study of the author's early work on the chemical cross-linking of proteins as well as on oligomer and peptide synthesis from 1949 in Heidelberg until the synthesis of insulin in 1963 in Aachen.

Situating System and Giving Self Its Due: A Story-Based Counseling Model

This essay explores Michael P. Nichols' criticism of certain aspects of the family systems therapeutic model, especially his concern that it takes insufficient account of the self in the family system. Building on Nichols' argument, and noting the paradigm shift occurring among family therapists from systems to story thinking, the essay sets forth a story model of counseling having four primary postulates: (a) possibilities for change are inherent in every story told; (b) characters in stories are always more than their ascribed social roles; (c) systems or dyadic and triadic relationships are a property of stories; and (d) the self is both a constituent of stories and exists independently of them. The importance of autobiographical studies to mediate pastoral theology's theoretical interest in theological anthropology and the story model of pastoral counseling is noted but not explored in depth.

My journey from wool research to insulin1Lecture given at the 4th Deutsches Peptidsymposium, University of Leipzig, 21–24 March 1999 (Chairman Hans-Dieter Jakubke).

This paper is an autobiographical study of the author's early work on the chemical cross-linking of proteins as well as on oligomer and peptide synthesis from 1949 in Heidelberg until the synthesis of insulin in 1963 in Aachen. 1 Editor's note: Professor Zahn was born in 1916 in Erlangen and studied chemistry at, and graduated from, the University of Technology in Karlsruhe (Dr. Ing. in 1940). From 1940 to 1949 he was assistant to Professor Elöd at the Institute for Textile Chemistry in Karlsruhe and later in Badenweiler, and from 1949 to 1957 he was assistant to Professor Freudenberg at the Institute for Chemistry of the University of Heidelberg. From 1952 to 1985 he was Director of the German Wool Research Institute, and in 1960 was appointed full Professor at the University of Technology in Aachen. Copyright © 2000 European Peptide Society and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Autobiographical Memories About the Experience of Seeing Frightening Movies in Childhood

Two autobiographical memory studies were conducted in order to better understand the social experience and short- and long-term effects of seeing frightening movies at a young age. Young adult participants (a) recalled the experience of watching a movie they had been frightened by as a child or teen, and (b) were assessed for levels of four kinds of dispositional empathy. They also reported who they watched the movie with, who chose it, what sorts of emotional reactions were experienced during viewing, and what negative effects they experienced following viewing. Participants typically remembered horror movies seen on video in the evening or at night at a mean age of 11 years. Results also showed that (a) fantasy empathy and perspective taking played a role in negative experiences; (b) some situational factors predicted later likelihood of viewing, anticipated fear; and enjoyment of the genre; and (c) a younger age at viewing and higher degree of perceived realism were associated with more negative effects of viewing.

The confessions of Saint Augustine: an annotated bibliography of modern criticism, 1888-1995

Foreword by G. E. Gorman Preface Acknowledgments Modern Criticism of the Confessions Autobiographical Studies Classical and Literary Scholarship Conversion Experience Time and Other Philosophical Issues Psychological Criticism Spirituality and Reader Guidance Structural Unity of the Text Theological Interpretation Index of Authors and Editors Index of Titles Index of Subjects

The Relationship between L1 and L2 Literacy: Some Complicating Factors

This paper explores ways in which the wholesale transfer of assumptions from LI literacy can sometimes complicate the process of acquiring L2 literacy. Using the methods of narrative inquiry, I describe my attempts to reach a deeper understanding of L2 literacy via an autobiographical study of Chinese literacy acquisition. The article describes the ways in which my prior English language literacy experiences affected my progress in the L2 and outlines the very complex set of unconscious assumptions about literacy which were held by my Chinese tutor and myself. Some of the key areas in which my tutor and I held different assumptions about literacy included: the qualities of self which literacy skills display; the value of analytic approaches to learning literacy versus holistic ones; the relationship between form and content; and the signs of a good learner. The article also touches on the emotional impact of this experience and suggests that teachers need to reach a fuller understanding of their unconscious assumptions about literacy if they are to help L2 literacy learners.

Autobiography and American Culture

AMERICAN AUTOBIOGRAPHY: RESTROSPECT AND PROSPECT, IN THE WISconsin Studies in American Autobiography Series, demonstrates the strength and diversity of autobiographical scholarship in the United States in the late twentieth century.' The collection of essays signifies not only the vigor of scholarly work but also the proliferation of autobiographical writing. Americans wrote over five thousand autobiographies between 1945 and 1980, according to Mary Louise Briscoe, whose recent work represents one of five basic bibliographies published in the last decade.2 Since the practice of autobiographical writing remains so pervasive in American culture, the genre and the scholarship that it generates provide a significant lens for viewing American studies. Because American Autobiography represents a range of scholarship in the field focused on the colonial period up to the present, it offers a meaningful framework for scholars interested in the current state of American autobiographical studies. Paul John Eakin, editor, describes the purpose of the volume: In order to facilitate the study of American autobiography, I want to draw together in a single volume a wealth of literary, cultural, and bibliographical information that

Contesting the Subject: Essays in the Postmodern Theory and Practice of Biography and Biographical Criticism (review)

REVIEWS 279 William H. Epstein, ed. Contesting the Subject: Essays in the Postmodern Theory and Practice of Biography and Biographical Criticism. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 1991. xi + 251 pp. $30.50. Few literary practices have remained less touched by the spectacular investment and speculation in critical theory over the last decade than biography. Unlike its sister genre, autobiography, which attracted unprecedented critical interest and institutional endorsement during the 1980s, biography, at least within academia, found itself the poor relation. Obdurate in the face of theory, most biographers are no doubt grateful for the academic neglect since, if nothing else, it has enabled them to continue unabated their pursuit of the biographical subject without it or them being subjected to "the terrible engines" of Marxian, poststructural or feminist hermeneutics. And in any case, their prolific labors are capitalized and ratified through the marketplace. But for scholars and critics of biography, this poor relation's academic marginalization and critical neglect can only be viewed with alarm. Although the output of literary biographies has probably never been greater than it is today, the amount of biographical criticism has, if anything, diminished. Few full-length biographical studies seriously engage contemporary theory and only one, to my knowledge (William H. Epstein's Recognizing Biography, parts of which were first published in Biography), can even begin to compare with the level of sophistication that is now commonplace in autobiographical studies. As a result, biography still remains under-theorized as a genre and virtually unexamined as a discursive and ideological practice; most biographical critics would probably not even acknowledge that biography and biographical criticism were ideological or that they performed any "cultural work" except, of course, the circulation of "truth." Given biography's marginalization and biographical criticism's general impoverishment , the announcement last year that Purdue University Press would be launching a series called The Theory and Practice of Biography and Biographical Criticism, under Epstein's general editorship, came as welcome news. Contesting the Subject, the first volume in the series, although not exactly the integral and defining volume one was led to expect from the promotional copy, is nevertheless an excellent "sampler" of recent examples of critical writing that amply support Epstein's contention that biographical criticism can only be invigorated by an engagement with contemporary theory . There are probably many reasons for biography's "theoretical embarrassment," to quote Jonathan Arac, but none is perhaps more important than the crisis of legitimacy brought about by the structuralist and poststructuralist assault waged by Barthes, Foucault, and Derrida upon the traditional humanist assumptions of the author as originating subject. While "the death of the author" only seemed to make autobiography, which was never entirely invested in this humanist epistemology to begin with, that much more interesting as a subject of theory and criticism, it became a skeleton in the closet for biography, which was heavily invested in the traditional assumptions about authorship, intentionality, objectivity, "truth." The dilemma for biographical critics has not just been the scandal of epistemological naivete but the fact that, unlike autobiography, which is by definition a self-reflexive form, biography is not a genre that readily accommodates the kind of metacritical reflexivity that has so invigorated autobiographical criticism. It is probably for these two reasons that Epstein's sampler contains so many essays that address biography's legitimacy through a revisionist reading of the death of the author and why so many of the discus- 280 biography Vol. 16, No. 3 sions of biography tend to be conflated with or become displaced by discussions of autobiography. Stanley Fish's "Biography and Intention," the first essay in the collection, seems expressly designed (perhaps even solicited) as biography's endorsement. Fish's strategy is to repudiate biography's marginality by claiming it is paradigmatic of all textual encounters. Taking issue with the New Critical and (post)structuralist assault upon intention and autonomous agency, Fish argues that If the originating author is dissolved into a series of functions, . . . then we have not done away with intention and biography but merely relocated them. In principle it does not matter whether the originating agent is a discrete human consciousness or the spirit of the age or a...

Memory for the time of past events.

Laboratory and autobiographical studies of normal adults'memory for the time of past events are reviewed, and the main phenomena that have been discovered are described. A distinction is introduced among several kinds of information on which this knowledge could be based: information about distances, locations, and relative times of occurrence. The main theories of memory for time are classified in these terms, and each theory is evaluated in light of the available evidence

The Representation of Women in the Autobiographical Novels of Raymond Queneau

Contents: The Status of Women in the France of Raymond Queneau's Early Novels: 1903-1940 - Women in Queneau's Life - Mothers and Mediators - The Autobiographical Novels: A Focus on Women. This book is the first to analyze Queneau's portrayal of women and the first to organize hitherto fragmented biographical data into a narrative. It will interest specialists in twentieth-century French literature, autobiographical studies and women's studies, as well as the educated general reader who knows some French and is familiar with Queneau's work.

Remembering autobiographically consequential experiences: Content analysis of psychologists' accounts of their lives.

The autobiographies of 49 eminent psychologists were content analyzed in terms of autobiographically consequential experiences (ACEs). Most memories for ACE were not single episodes. Episodic ACEs did, however, share many characteristics of "flashbulb" and vivid memories elicited in studies using more traditional experimental procedures. Memories were concentrated during the college and early adult years. Thus, as in other autobiographical memory studies that have used older subjects, there was a pronounced reminiscence effect. These results were considered in light of Erikson's theory of adult personality development.

Attachment theory as an alternative basis of psychoanalysis.

In The Crisis of Psychoanalysis, Fromm (1978) claims that psychoanalysis has lost its potential for being a critical theory of society. In this article it is suggested that a renewal of psychoanalysis may be accomplished by retaining the psychoanalytic method and adopting an extended version of Bowlby's attachment theory as an alternative paradigm. In his Autobiographical Study Freud (1925), spoke of metapsychology as "a speculative superstructure of psychoanalysis, any portion of which can be abandoned or changed." However, once the traditional framework is discarded, there is a tendency to view psychoanalysis as a purely hermeneutic d iscipline--a set of rules for interpreting verbal communications. This approach is taken, with different nuances, by such authors as Lacan, Schafer, Klein, Ricoeur, and Habermas (Modell, 1981). But this approach is open to serious methodological objections. In a recent philosophical critique of psychoanalysis, Gri~nbaum (1984) upholds Eysenck's claim that the psychoanalytic setting may generate heuristically useful hypotheses, but that these hypotheses can be validated only by controlled extraclinical studies.

Generations: Reconceptualist Curriculum Theory and Teacher Education

Phenomenological and feminist themes in reconceptualist curriculum theory are used to address the political and social status of teachers and their intellectual preparation for teaching. Arguments are offered for autobiographical studies in education, collaborative modes of learn ing and teaching, and interdisciplinary approaches to liberal arts education.

Reductions in [3H]nicotinic acetylcholine binding in Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease: an autoradiographic study.

In Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD), dysfunction in the basal forebrain cholinergic system is accompanied by a consistent loss of presynaptic cholinergic markers in cortex, but changes in cholinergic receptor binding sites are poorly understood. In the present study, we used receptor autoradiography to map the distribution of nicotinic [3H]acetylcholine binding sites in cortices of individuals with AD and PD and matched control subjects. In both diseases, a profound loss of nicotinic receptors occurs in all cortical layers, particularly the deepest layers.