Abstract
This chapter illustrates the value of psychobiographical approaches in modern psychological pedagogy, particularly psychobiographies of underrepresented lives where traditional empirical work is often lacking. We illustrate this with a psychobiography of Flora Tristan, a nineteenth century French/Peruvian feminist and social activist. Tristan’s life serves to highlight the rich complexities that go beyond the conventional conceptions of Erik Erikson’s psychosocial theory of development. Specifically, Tristan’s passionate generativity showcased through her activist identity illustrates that Erikson’s adult stages of identity development, intimacy formation, and generativity are not as independent and sequential constructs as traditionally presented in Erikson’s model. This pattern echoes other psychobiographical work, recent psychometric and longitudinal studies of Eriksonian constructs, and Erikson’s own theorizing and psychobiographical work. In illustrating these points, this chapter serves as an example of and provides tools for how psychobiographical exploration into non-WEIRD samples can be integrated into pedagogy and, by extension, can impact scholarship in specific areas.
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Notes
- 1.
The other stages were not addressed, as their conventional timing falls outside the period of Flora’s life examined here.
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Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Brent Roberts for comments and suggestions on early drafts of this manuscript and for encouraging its dissemination as more than just an intellectual exercise. Further thanks are due to the Psychobiography class in Spring 2012 at Canisius College for their feedback and insights into a draft of this psychobiography. Thanks also to Erica Baranski and Bill Chopik for their input on this chapter. Portions of the manuscript were prepared during the Winter Faculty Writing Retreat at Canisius College in January 2022.
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Lodi-Smith, J., Mitchell, L., Versey, H.S., Newton, N.J., Whitbourne, S.K. (2023). The Pedagogical Value of Psychobiography as Illustrated by an Examination of Eriksonian Psychosocial Development in the Life of Flora Tristan. In: Mayer, CH., van Niekerk, R., Fouché, P.J., Ponterotto, J.G. (eds) Beyond WEIRD: Psychobiography in Times of Transcultural and Transdisciplinary Perspectives. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28827-2_11
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