The contribution of narrative psychology to Szondis fate-analysis

In the middle of the 1980s a new paradigm appeared in psychology, which emphasized the epic character and the narrativity of our knowledge and thinking. The untied narrative is not a simple report about what had happened, but it implies a lot of psychological characteristic features connected to the events. The study intends to discuss the question whether the narrative meta-theory can contribute to the integration of Szondi's fate-analysis and projective testing method into modern psychology. I survey the main anchoring points of narrative psychology, emphasizing that narration as a form of representation based on its mental and linguistic-semiotic character can be applied in the exploration of individuals' psychic reality. Following, I will present the Szondi projective test, the clinical tool for exploring the intrapsychic process. The connection between the narrative and the intrapsychic occurrences seems to be the most evident in case of biographies. Therefore, we have chosen for the subject of our research, the personality examination of 20 malignant colorectal cancer patients aged between 45 to 65. We carried out Szondi's projective test and narrative psychological content-analysis of their life-stories. Comparing the life narrative of cancer patients and controls by using the method of narrative psychological content-analysis and Szondi's projective test we found qualitative differences. Based on the evidence of this qualitative differences we are able to draw clear and reliable conclusion and make distinction between colorectal cancer patients and control persons in terms of intrapsychic occurrences.