1883, "history of an individual soul; the natural history of the phenomenon of mind," from psycho- + -graphy. Earlier it meant "spirit-writing by the hand of a medium" (1863).
Entries linking to psychography
psycho-
word-forming element meaning "mind, mental; spirit, unconscious," from Greek combining form of psykhē "the soul, mind, spirit; life, one's life, the invisible animating principle or entity which occupies and directs the physical body; understanding, the mind (as the seat of thought), faculty of reason" (see psyche). It also was used to form compounds in Greek, such as psychapates "soul-beguiling" (with apate "deceit").
-graphy
word-forming element meaning "process of writing or recording" or "a writing, recording, or description" (in modern use especially in forming names of descriptive sciences), from French or German -graphie, from Greek -graphia "description of," used in abstract nouns from graphein "write, express by written characters," earlier "to draw, represent by lines drawn," originally "to scrape, scratch" (on clay tablets with a stylus), from PIE root *gerbh- "to scratch, carve" (see carve).
psychographic adj.
also psycho-graphic, "of or pertaining to psychography," 1856, from psychograph "supernatural photographic image or device" (1854) from psycho- + -graph. Also see psychography. Related: Psychographics.
—What next? Among the new patents announced is one to Adolphus Theodore Wagner, of Berlin, in the kingdom of Prussia, professor of music, for the invention of a "psychograph, or apparatus for indicating a person's thoughts by the agency of nervous electricity." [Arthur's Home Magazine, May 1854]