The “Genius” and “Madness” of Bobby Fischer: His Life from Three Psychobiographical Lenses

Abstract

Robert (Bobby) James Fischer (1943–2008) remains one of the most puzzling and enigmatic personalities in modern American history. In 1972, at the height of Cold War tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States, Bobby Fischer defeated Soviet Boris Spassky to become the first official world chess champion from the United States. Two decades later, after playing a rematch with Spassky in war-torn Yugoslavia, Fischer became a fugitive from U.S. justice. Although always an independent, autonomous, and forthright person, Fischer's behavior after the 1972 championship grew increasingly strange and bizarre. “Who was Bobby Fischer and what happened to him” is a lingering question that has not been adequately answered by psychologists, historians, and biographers. The present article examines the life of Bobby Fischer from three diverse psychobiographical lenses: Erikson's (Erikson, E. H. [1950]. Childhood and society. New York, NY: Norton) psychosocial development model; the clinical diagnostic model of the Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure (SWAP; Shedler, J. [2009]. Guide to SWAP-200 Interpretation. Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure: Where Science Meets Practice. www.SWAPassessment.org ); and a strengths-based positive psychology model (Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. [2004]. Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.). Suggestions for advancing the science of psychobiography are put forth with particular emphasis on incorporating mixed methods approaches to research.

Careerography: Application of Psychobiography to Career Development

“…Although psychodynamic approaches continue to serve as valuable foundations for psychobiography (Anderson, 2003), additional theories have recently been incorporated into psychobiographical research. Examples of this theoretical expansion include the positive psychology and/or diathesis stress models anchoring psychobiographies of author Paulo Coelho (Mayer, 2017) and chess champion Bobby Fischer (Ponterotto & Reynolds, 2013), and the Big Five personality theory and attachment theory profiles of George W. Bush (McAdams, 2011) and Truman Capote (Schultz, 2011).…”

Careerography in Career Counseling Practice, Research, and Training

“…Furthermore, the intensive study of an individual life may be of significant interest to the team due to the subject’s prior achievements, traumas, resiliency factors, and in some cases their sudden downward spiral or ability to affect large societal changes (Ponterotto, 2017b). While psychobiographical research draws heavily from qualitative research methods, students may have the opportunity to learn about and work from various methodologies while performing psychobiographical and careerographical research, including qualitative and historiographic (Elms, 2005; Kőváry, 2018), quantitative (Simonton, 1998), and mixed-methods designs (Ponterotto, 2019; Ponterotto & Reynolds, 2013). Equally important to the selection of the research paradigm and methodology is the career/vocational theories applied to a careerography subject (Bigony, Alpers, & Ponterotto, in press; Ponterotto & Park-Taylor, in press).…”

“…Much value can be added in conceptualizing and interpreting individual lives using models and theories to help clinicians in their work as therapists and career counselors. Ponterotto and Reynolds (2013) provided an example of the utility of using Erikson’s (1980) model of psychosocial development as applied to the life of former world chess champion Bobby Fischer, with emphasis on work, career choice, identity, and life roles.…”

Psychobiography Training in Psychology in North America: Mapping the Field and Charting a Course

“…More recently, this definition has been expanded upon as follows: Psychobiography is “the intensive life-span study of an individual of historic significance in socio-cultural context using psychological and historiographic research methods and interpreted from established theories of psychology” ( Ponterotto, in press , p. 3). Psychobiography is a topical specialty and sub-discipline within psychology, and psychobiographical research methods employ primarily qualitative and historiographic research approaches ( Elms, 1994 , 2005 , 2007 ; Schultz, 2005b ), but also quantitative ( Simonton, 1998 ; Wiggins, 2003 ), and mixed methods designs ( Ponterotto & Reynolds, 2013 ).…”