29/08/2026
Voices of trauma and resilience in the lives of Gwen Jonh, Pina Bausch, Sigmund Freud and Charles Darwin: A dialogical and narrative framework for psychobiography.
Symposium 12 in Thessaloniki
Chair: Athena Androutsopoulou
(‘Logo Psychis’- Training and Research Institute for Systemic Psychotherapy, Greece)
Discussant: Maria Viou
(‘Logo Psychis’-Training and Research Institute for Systemic Psychotherapy)
“In the past, most psychobiographies have looked into the lives of distinct persons through a psychoanalytic and psychodynamic theoretical prism. Recently, psychobiography has flourished with researchers adopting a variety of psychobiography prisms. Psychobiography is now included in many academic psychology courses, whereas new textbooks have been published and special journal issues have been devoted to a new era in psychobiography research. Our series of psychobiography studies conducted at our affiliated institute consistently use a dialogical and narrative prism. They serve as theory-building case studies, expanding and exploring relevant theoretical ideas. They also serve as clinical case studies of ‘complete lives’ following relevant ethical guidelines recently stated by APA. All of the studies presented here look into autobiographical texts and art (letters and/or diaries, biographical essays, memoirs and dreams, self-portraits/art). They examine the lives of persons who dealt with various traumas (developmental, war, transgenerational) but were assisted by voices promoting resilience. The nature of the interplay of voices and the importance of their being sustained by various narrative themes is explored by researchers who present innovative narrative-dialogical methodologies for the study of distinct lives.”
In Search of Secure Inner and Outer Spaces:A Psychobiography Study of Gwen John
Ioanna Ferati; Marina Kyvelou; Sofia Maniadaki; Mariatini Zogkou
‘Logo Psychis’-Training and Research Institute for Systemic Psychotherapy
Presented is a psychobiographical study of the British painter Gwen John (1876- 1939).
