Dissemination of Findings

Biography and life story research is scientifically and practically useful for dissemination. Scholars employ several formats to write a biography and life story research report, making this research methodology beneficial for multiple types of audiences. These formats include journal articles, books written as biographies for both the general reader and the scholar, and book chapters in theory and methods handbooks. This range allows for the general reader to gain insight into the psychology of lives, and for a professional to gain theoretical knowledge as well as some technical insight into the practice of therapy, healing, and liberation. Disseminated biography and life story findings are also useful as case materials for professional development with teachers, as well as professionals in social work and psychology.

Well-developed biography and life story protocols guided by strong theoretical and methodological research design can also be disseminated in the form of coding systems and data protocols that serve as methodological guides for researchers to use in future biography and life story studies. The data collection instruments used in biography and life story research have practical applicability as another form of dissemination. For example, the Identity and Success Life Story Method has been used for life coaching with individuals, as well as in executive coaching and leadership development within corporations (see www.winstonsynergy.com).

Life stories have several useful functions for enhancing the lived experience. For example, life stories entertain, inform, and heal, and they also integrate and convey the overall purpose and meaning of a human life. In fact, most of clinical and counseling psychology practice is characterized by the professional's working with the client to engage in a process of storying and retelling the whole life or critical life episodes.