Jean-Paul Sartre: Psychobiographical Investigations of a Political Philosopher, Writer and Thinker

This study aimed to reconstruct the life of Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell (1868–1926) via a psychobiography, by applying Daniel Levinson's theory of lifespan development. Psychobiography entails the longitudinal and systematic study of significant individuals in socio-historical context from a psychological framework. Gertrude Bell was selected as psychobiographical subject through purposive sampling. Bell was a brilliant Oxford scholar and trailblazing leader in several professional contexts such as British politics, archaeology and linguistics. As an avid adventurer, Bell embarked upon excursions into the Arabian Desert and assisted in stabilising political conflicts in the Middle East after World War I. Bell was dubbed the ‘Queen of the Desert' and spoke eight languages. Posthumously, Bell was proclaimed by political figures and peers to have been one of the most powerful women in the British Empire. Levinson proposed a life structure that develops through a sequence of periods that are age-related, and emphasised historical, cultural and social factors that influence the life course. Bell's life and lifespan development were uncovered through the systematic review of publicly available archival data. Alexander's indicators of salience were used to identify and extract the most significant themes, which were interpreted using Levinson's theory. Findings indicate that Bell progressed through the same age-linked eras and transitional periods that Levinson proposed. Her life reflected a process of individuation and the internal struggle between the opposing images of the Anti-Traditional Figure and the Traditional Homemaker Figure, which ultimately influenced Bell's development as a leader.