© Psychological Society of South Africa. All rights reserved. South African Journal of Psychology, 40(4), 2010, pp. 495-507 ISSN 0081-2463 Academic psychobiography in South Africa: past, present and future Paul Fouché Department of Psychology, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa Fouchejp.hum@ufs.ac.za Roelf van Niekerk Department of Psychology, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein Vniekerkr.hum@ufs.ac.za Our aim is to highlight the past, present and future state of affairs of South African psychobiography. Particular attention is given to the trends and the challenges faced by academic psycho-biographers in South Africa. Over the past decade psychobiography has evolved into an established research genre and has become a methodology used by various academics and post-graduate research scholars at South African universities. Psychobiography entails the study of historically significant and extraordinary individuals over their entire life spans with the aim to uncover and reconstruct their lives psychologically. These longitudinal case studies include the psychological study of personalities in diverse occupational fields such as architecture, arts and literature, business and entrepreneur- ship, politics, religion and spirituality, sport, science, as well as the popular biographies of celebrities. Psycho-biographical studies in South Africa have been nurtured in the departments of psychology at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Rhodes University, the University of Johannesburg, and the University of the Free State. Most of these biographical studies have been completed as postgraduate r research endeavours in master’s and doctoral degree programmes in psychology where academic staff have initiated and grown psychobiography as a strategic research focus area within their faculties. Psycho-biographical research has considerable logistical and administrative value for postgraduate research and the supervision process, and is also of academic benefit to the theoretical development of South African psychology. In South Africa an array of exemplary perso- nalities constitute a ‘hall of fame’. Their legendary lives are ideal case studies which may be used to develop and/or refute aspects of psychological theory and its applicability to human development over the span of an individual’s life. Keywords: biography; departments of psychology; psychobiography; South African; state of affairs; trends Over the past decade psychobiography has developed into an established methodology used by various academics and postgraduate research scholars in departments of psychology at South African universities. Most psycho-biographical studies have been completed as postgraduate research en- deavours in master’s and doctoral degree programmes in psychology where academics have initiated and grown psychobiography as a strategic research focus area within their faculties. The key aim in this article is to introduce the growing field of academic psychobiography to the mainstream South African readership in psychology. The article traces the formative years of the approach, providing an overview of current developments and tabling an agenda for further refinements in the future. The aim is not to present a systematic critique of the method neither to differentiate this method from various forms of narrative analysis applied to secondary data. The article rather provides for a des- cription of psycho-biographical life history research; international and national historical landmarks in psycho-biographical texts; general trends and shortcomings in academic psychobiography; and recommendations for its South African development as a way forward so as to witness its ‘coming of age’. DEFINING PSYCHOBIOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH Psychobiographical study entails a systematic and descriptively-rich study of renowned, enigmatic,