General assessment – 1

Autobiography with an exercise

It is customary to start a psychosynthesis journey, especially when therapeutic, asking the person to write their biography. Assagioli considered writing a process with infinite potential, multifaceted and complex, and, in many ways, radically different from the verbal account commonly preferred in therapy.

The time dedicated to the drafting of our own autobiography, plays a fundamental part in the self-knowledge process. Writing about ourselves enables us to objectify our life story, triggering cognitive processes considered of primary importance in this initial phase:

  • it facilitates the development and reinforcement of self-observation ability;
  • it directs the individual towards introspection and retrospection;
  • it promotes thought and helps the identification of causal patterns which operated in the past and might be still operative in the present;
  • it strengthens and promotes the natural disposition of the psyche to synthesis, which is also the search for coherence and deep meanings.

In other words, autobiographical writing leads to a deeper understanding of oneself, encouraging new knowledge, and contributing to a deeper transformation of the personality. However, writing an autobiography does not only entail a thorough understanding of one’s life, but it also requires that we take responsibility for what we know, that we fully “own” it. By encouraging a disidentification process (or cognitive distancing), it creates a psychological space in which the processing of what was learnt can happen. Writing is considered a medium which enhances the development of attention, that helps the ability to focus, to be disciplined, and it is an ideal exercise for practicing the will. Thus, it supports the development of all those essential qualities, necessary for the management of our inner and outer life.

Finally, writing itself can trigger and encourage transforming processes. Assagioli explains:

“in writing both conscious and unconscious factors are active; therefore, it often happens that, while the subject starts writing down what he is consciously aware of, later on things come up which he had not thought of before and which sometimes surprise him” (Assagioli, 1965, p. 70).

The emerging of unforeseen contents introduces a dimension considered fundamental for the purpose of therapy, of teaching or of learning: amazement, stupor. It often happens that one starts writing about something that had already been thought of, but then progressively other ideas arise; the thread, the train of thought takes unexpected directions, and something surprising comes out even for the writer himself (Assagioli, 2007, p. 42).

EXERCISE

Generally, one focuses on the retrospective view on life that the autobiography promotes. However, introducing an additional time-frame – focused on the present and possessing an introspective quality – and a third one – projected towards the future and in which the writing adopts anagogic and transformative elements-, can be a valuable exercise.

The three stages of the autobiography (Guggisberg Nocelli, 2000)

  • Take a moment (10 min) to write right away, what comes to mind when thinking about “My past life”. Let your writing flow on the sheet, possibly without cutting back the content even if they seem bizarre or embarrassing. Then read it again slowly and draw a picture that expresses the underlying feeling emerging from your script.
  • Take a moment (10 min) to write right away, what comes to mind when thinking about “My present life”. Let your writing flow on the sheet, possibly without cutting back the content even if they seem bizarre or embarrassing. Then read it again slowly and draw a picture which expresses the underlying feeling emerging from your script.
  • Take a moment (10 min) to write right away, what comes to mind when thinking about “My future life”. Let your writing flow on the sheet, possibly without cutting back the content even if they seem bizarre or embarrassing. Then read it again slowly and draw a picture which expresses the underlying feeling emerging from your script.

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