Patient autobiographies considered useful
in psychologists' work with clients, study suggests

Although autobiographies by people with mental disorders are helpful in treatment, few therapists recommend them to their patients, according to a recent study. Researchers speculate that might be because few autobiographies have been ranked or seriously considered for professional practice.

Almost 90 percent of the 362 psychologists polled in the study had used self-help books in their practice. By comparison, only a third had used patient autobiographies. Yet at the same time, almost all of those who assigned autobiographies found them "somewhat" or "very" helpful for giving their patients concrete strategies, insight and hope for recovery.

Whereas numerous studies and books have analyzed self-help books and ranked the best ones, almost nothing has been written on autobiographies, says University of Scranton psychologist John C. Norcross, PhD, who conducted the study with his former graduate student Jennifer Clifford and psychologist Robert Sommer, PhD, of the University of California-Davis. Their study appears in the February issue of APA's Professional Psychology: Research and Practice (Vol. 30, No. 1, p. 56-59).

So, to raise the profile of autobiographies and provide more guidance on using them, Norcross, Clifford and Sommer asked the study's respondents to rank the top 40 autobiographies by editorial quality and helpfulness to patients.

Psychologist Kay Jamison's "An Unquiet Mind" (Knopf, 1995), landed the top spot. Donna Williams's "Nobody Nowhere: The Extraordinary Autobiography of an Autistic" (Avon Books, 1994), placed second, and William Styron's "Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness" (Vintage Books, 1992), placed third.

Norcross isn't sure why autobiographies prove so helpful, but he speculates it's because they offer clients an "insider's view" of mental disorder from someone who has lived it.

"Scientists and educators may cry over a list of figures, but lay people are more impressed by the dramatic personal narrative," Norcross says. "Reading a narrative helps normalize and universalize what the patient's experiencing and can have far more powerful ramifications than just our words."

--B. Murray

For a comprehensive (annotated but unrated) list of autobiographies, visit Sommer's web site at psychology.ucdavis.edu/SommerR/htmAuto/goodBib.htm



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