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The Case for the Psychobiography as a Phenomenological-Hermeneutic Case Study: A New Phenomenological-Hermeneutic Method of Analysis for Life-Narrative Investigations

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New Trends in Psychobiography

Abstract

Both description and interpretive understanding are the long established hallmarks of phenomenology and phenomenological research. If the psychobiography as a case study includes description and interpretation it can be aligned with phenomenology. As such, it can be positioned as a phenomenological-hermeneutic case study. With an emphasis on life-narrative, the psychobiography as a phenomenological-hermeneutic case study requires a new phenomenological-hermeneutic method of analysis. While there are existing methods of both narrative and life-narrative analysis, they are not strictly phenomenological-hermeneutical. A new method of analysis for psychobiographical and other life-narrative research is presented. It is referred to as ‘Phenomenological-hermeneutic Life-narrative Analysis’ (PLA). Furthermore, the notion of the researcher’s unconscious bias is introduced and included in this new method of analysis. It is termed the ‘researcher’s transferential implant’.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The European life philosophy or the Lebensphilosophie of the late 19th century concerned the value of studying the human ‘individuum’ in an idiographic way. It supported the importance of the psycho-biographical approach to understanding the individual life, and thus it had links to the value of detailed descriptions of experiences of that life, a hallmark of phenomenology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg, Auckland Park Campus, Kingsway Road, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Zelda Gillian Knight

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  1. Zelda Gillian Knight
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Correspondence to Zelda Gillian Knight .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Industrial Psychology and People Management, University of Johannesburg , Johannesburg, South Africa

    Claude-Hélène Mayer

  2. Institute of Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary

    Zoltan Kovary

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Knight, Z.G. (2019). The Case for the Psychobiography as a Phenomenological-Hermeneutic Case Study: A New Phenomenological-Hermeneutic Method of Analysis for Life-Narrative Investigations. In: Mayer, CH., Kovary, Z. (eds) New Trends in Psychobiography. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16953-4_8

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