138 I. THEORETICAL  PERSPECTI vES AND  CONCEPT uAL uNITS
revitalize idiographic inquiry and the study 
of the single case.
In the year 1900, Sigmund Freud pub -
lished what is arguably the most famous 
book ever written on the interpretation of 
personal narratives. In The Interpretation 
of Dreams,  Freud (1900/1953) argued that 
dream stories are the royal road to the un -
conscious. Freud surely promised too much, 
and he placed too much faith in but one kind 
of story people tell. But he had it right when 
he surmised that stories hold psychologi -
cal truth. Over 100 years later, personality 
psychologists have taken on the task of ex -
ploring systematically the panoply of stories 
that people create, tell, and enact about their 
lives, from childhood through old age, in so -
cial interactions and in culture. The study 
of narrative identity is not the only  road 
to understanding psychological individual -
ity. But until recent years, it was the road 
less traveled. As more and more personality 
psychologists and other scientists are drawn 
down the narrative path, researchers will 
continue to develop new insights and build 
up systematic bodies of knowledge on how 
people make narrative sense of their lives, 
and how the stories they tell largely deter -
mine who they are and how they find mean -
ing and purpose in the world.
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