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The historical development of psychoanalytic biography has been traced. It seemed useful to look upon this development as exemplifying general rules of scientific growth in terms of Kuhn's (1962) paradigm. The interest and investment of energy in psychoanalytic biography stemmed from the hope that psychoanalysis would be capable of understanding extraordinary achievement as it illuminated the riddle of neurosis. Lacking free associations, the basic tool of the clinical psychoanalyst, interpretation by symbols was
extensively used. This was possible because the majority of subjects were artists and therefore users of symbols. But the interpretation by symbols alone proved hazardous. Artists whose lives were dominated by an early trauma were easier to understand and therefore preferred as subjects. Psychoanalytic biographers found unique substitutes for free associations. Psychoanalytic ego psychology modified the basic model by emphasizing the ego as well as the unconscious wishes. It also stressed developmental phases other than early infancy. We may be witnessing the emergence of a new model.