Life interviewing is something that I heard of only recently. The concept was developed by psychologist Robert Atkinson from the University of Southern Maine. Basically the concept is to sit down with someone for one or more sessions of however much time you need and record the individual's whole life from birth until present. It can be a stranger or someone that you know well, or maybe someone in your family you don't know well but wish you did. Although it was developed by a psychologist, it isn't a type of therapy. Yeah, it's good practice if you want to work with people, but the goal is to help the person record an account of thier life.
I would love to do this with a lot of people in my family. I think it's a great opportunity to learn some things about them and my family history that I could have never known otherwise. Most of all, however, I think I would like to do this with my Nana. I really don't know much about her and her life other than who she is today. I would love to learn who she was, and what she did that brought her to this moment in life.
To learn more about life interviewing, you can visit the Univerity of Maine's website by clicking right here. The website will describe what life interviewing is, some sample questions, and even some life stories that were conducted. There was a book published too that you can get on Amazon if you are seriously considering conducting a life interview.
On a related note, if you are interested in life stories in general there is a great project by StoryCorps. Booths are set up at various locations in the United States, as well as a traveling booth that goes to various locations. Anybody can interview anybody else about whatever topic they choose, and it gets archived in the Library of Congress. A great way to become familiar with this is to watch some of the animated shorts that StoryCorps has made out of a few of the interviews. Watch some of them here:
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| StoryCorps Animated Shorts |
