4. Autobiography and psychoanalysis

Abstract

Life-writing has been central to psychoanalysis, which created its own form of biographical narrative. The psychoanalytic case study draws upon the dreams and reminiscences of patients to reconstruct their stories. Psychoanalysis has also profoundly shaped autobiographical consciousness. While psychoanalytic theories and therapies have led to new ways of thinking and writing about the self, psychoanalytic thought also takes up much earlier models of the mind and identity. Through the works of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, among others, ‘Autobiography and psychoanalysis’ explains how psychoanalysis has been a shaping force on 20th-century autobiography. The model of the ‘inside out’ suggests an exploration of the autobiographer’s inner world, which is then turned outwards, through writing and towards a readership.