Healing Biography

This biographical writing course is designed to aid self-analysis and provide relief from life events that have been weighing you down. It can be used to manage crises encountered in the course of life.

Biographical writing has a therapeutic effect but is no replacement for (psycho)therapy. Instead, it is intended to help us better understand ourselves and our lives – especially in our unconscious strivings – through the use of psychological and psychotherapeutic tools. The well-known analyst Gertrude R. Ticho defines self-analysis as “self-observation, self-awareness and free access to one’s own unconscious.” Viktor von Weizsäcker, building on Freud’s insights, wrote: “The essential nature of illness is biographical; therefore the understanding of illness can only be a biographical one.” Günter Clauser wrote a textbook on biographical analysis (1963) to trace the causes of illness. If you are affected by an illness, biographical analysis will help you.

The physician Klaus Thomas writes in his excellent book Selbstanalyse – Die heilende Biographie, ihre Abfassung und ihre Auswirkung (Self-analysis – The healing biography, its authoring and its effect, 2nd edition 1976), which I will refer to often in the course of our work: “As a sub-field of depth psychology, self-analysis, too, is on the one hand a natural part of a healthy mind, with (…) deepened reflection, memory, assuming responsibility for a life lived – with conclusions, resolutions and decisions, with insights, certainties and plans. On the other hand, however, self-analysis intrinsically extends into psychotherapy, into the vast storehouse of forgotten, submerged, repressed experiences of hurts and psychological injuries that took place long ago and were thought to have been overcome. It uncovers the buried origins of agonising tensions, neurotic inhibitions, hidden fears, alarming aggressions, disturbing disagreements, incomprehensible emotional outbursts etc. and thus contributes – often to a remarkable or even decisive degree – to the preservation or restoration of mental health and the ability to work.”

Participation fee

The monthly participation fee is only USD 39.00 and you can cancel any time you wish. I am no friend of small print, long-term contractual obligations and hidden fees, so you won’t find any in my terms and conditions!

Alternatively, you can order a half-year subscription (25 biography assignments) at the discounted price of USD 215.00 or the complete course (51 biography assignments) for USD 400.00.

Participation fee in your country

	Month	26 assignments	51 assignments
Australia/ AUD	51.00	289.00	518.00
Canada/ CAD	47.00	267.00	477.00
Great Britain/ GBP	29.00	159.00	286.00
Ireland/ EUR	34.00	190.00	340.00
New Zealand/ NZD	55.00	308.00	551.00
USA/ USD	39.00	215.00	400.00

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Take a look at the list of 51 biography assignments below! If you decide to subscribe, you won’t have to pay for this first assignment, of course. Your subscription to the course, which consists of 51 biography assignments (approximately 300 pages in total) begins with your registration and the receipt of your first monthly payment. You will then be sent a biography assignment every week – generally on Wednesdays – as an email attachment in PDF format.

You can begin the writing course at any time!

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List of 51 biography assignments

Part I:
Getting Started

No. 01: Living on in your own biography – and freeing your soul from painful memories
No. 02: Introduction to self-analysis
No. 03: Themes in your psychological time
No. 04: The art of interpreting your photos
No. 05: Objects as reminders of your past
No. 06: Legal issues of biographical writing
No. 07: The craft of writing – basic rules for creating an exciting narrative (part 1)
No. 08: The craft of writing – basic rules for creating an exciting narrative (part 2)

Part II:
Gaining Clarity of Mind Through the Writing Process

No. 09: Nomen est omen? Your name and its meaning
No. 10: Parents and grandparents – first draft
No. 11: Your childhood from today’s perspective
No. 12: Facing your fears
No. 13: Aggressions
No. 14: Ambivalences – contradictory forces
No. 15: Independence and relationships – the quest for love and happiness
No. 16: Love and marriage
No. 17: Starting a family and gender roles
No. 18: Preparing for childbirth and the post-childbirth reality
No. 19: Family life and working life
No. 20: Marriage and its crises
No. 21: Those you have loved
No. 22: The golden thread (part 1)
No. 23: The road not taken – biography of the imagination
No. 24: Comings and goings – journeys into the outside world and into the soul
No. 25: The role of money
No. 26: Having fun
No. 27: The happiest day of your life – and the darkest
No. 28: Losses
No. 29: What makes you proud
No. 30: Values and motivation – what makes you strong?
No. 31: Turning points
No. 32: Spirituality and making sense of life
No. 33: Parents – second draft
No. 34: The golden thread (part 2)
No. 35: Shame and humiliation
No. 36: Lies and other stories
No. 37: Guilt and feelings of guilt
No. 38: Punishment and self-punishment
No. 39: Hatred and self-hatred
No. 40: Self-respect and feelings of inferiority
No. 41: Ambition, power and helplessness
No. 42: Physical contact and sexuality
No. 43: Reflections
No. 44: To conform or not to conform?
No. 45: Your repertoire of roles
No. 46: Your secrets
No. 47: Death imagined
No. 48: If I could live my life over …
No. 49: Beginning and ending – writing the preface and epilogue
No. 50: Editing your draft
No. 51: End-of-course summary with extended reading list and feedback questionnaire