PSYCHO-BIOGRAPHY TRADITION IN THE HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION

Abstract

Although psychobiography has a history of nearly a century, it has received increasing attention, especially in the last quarter century. Psychobiography is a personality analysis based on real data about the individual rather than a simple biography. in psycho-biographies, whether it is a historical personality or a living person, it is aimed to re-construct his personality based on the works he produces as much as his biographical data and to reinterpret his works by making use of this construction. By analyzing the layers of form, event and meaning used by going through the works of the person whose psychobiography is written, their conscious and unconscious motivations and defense mechanisms are analyzed through psychological and psychoanalytic concepts. Although the pioneers of psychobiography, which is a personality analysis based on real data about the individual rather than a simple biography, are psychoanalysts, psychoanalysis is not the only psychological approach applied during the process of making psychoanalysis, other psychological approaches have also been adopted. Individuals subject to psychobiography are generally personalities that have come to the forefront with various characteristics and have become historical. Rather, psycho-biographies of such people are written because they are role models to society in various ways, in addition to other people's desire to know and understand them better. Psycho-biographical studies, which began to appear in the years when the psychology of religion appeared on the stage of history, could not continue at the same speed and experienced a period of convalescence for a long time.