A narratological methodology for identifying archetypal story patterns in autobiographical narratives

Based on Jung's definition of archetype the concept 'archetypal story pattern' is developed as well as a research method drawing on narrative analysis and biographical research to identify these archetypal story patterns in life stories. Jung pointed out that personal myths, archetypal patterns found, e.g., in mythology, can govern the life course of individuals unconsciously. In the Theory of Narrative Identity comparable concepts have been mentioned but were never fully developed. In my research I try to combine Jung's concept of the archetype with the elaborated methodology of narrative analysis. Archetypes can manifest as narratives and the identity construction of a person via narrating the life story can be influenced or even totally structured by archetypal stories which give a specific form as well as a specific meaning to the person's identity. The method of extracting an underlying archetypal pattern from an autobiographical narrative is demonstrated. The results of the research on 20 autobiographical interviews and the inherent archetypal patterns are summarized. The major aim of this paper is to describe in detail the application of a well established method of the social sciences on a key concept of Jungian psychology to show that these concepts can be integrated into recent research frameworks of academic sciences. On the other hand it shows that Jungian concepts can be investigated through established and well defined research methods in empirical research settings.