Clinical utility of autobiography

Abstract

The autobiography is a qualitative and semistructured clinical technique that can be used at different moments of the diagnostic-therapeutic process. It is a valuable starting from which significant contents can be extracted with which to work therapeutically. This explains the richness of the contents it provides in the assessment process, its contribution to the patient’s self-knowledge and the individual’s interpretation of past experiences. The treatment, which revolves around and is based on the autobiography, promotes therapist-patient interactions that allow reelaborations and new autobiographical formulations that, little by little, will reflect the changes ocurring in the process of assessment-therapeutic intervention. The parallelism between the task of verbally expressing what is the matter in the interview and telling one’s storey in written form will be completed during treatment with due feedback. Both forms of communication share common aspects and should complement each other.