Speak to ANY personal historian for long enough, and he or she — they are, in fact, mostly shes — will regale you with dozens of similar success stories. There can be pitfalls, however, in serving as a professional confidant. Very often, a personal historian will spend scores of hours with a client, picking through childhood memories, family relationships, employment histories, war stories, friendships, and love affairs, and not all the memories dredged up are pleasant. Indeed, sometimes things get downright ugly.

"In my experience, life reflections develop at different stages," Axelson-Berry says. "Sometimes the initial attempts are characterized by motifs of old hurts and vendettas and unresolved arguments. The art of getting beyond these initial obstacles to a deeper reflection is part of the art of the personal historian."

And then, of course, there’s the issue of how much ugly (but true) material to include in the finished book — and how much to leave out. Marian Broder, owner of Memories Recorded, based in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, believes this may be the knottiest issue personal historians face.

"Some say put everything in, let it all hang out," Broder says. "But these things are going to end up on someone’s coffee table. Sometimes people will have prison records, or they have had affairs. I find that clients will get so comfortable with me they’ll tell me anything. I have had to say, ‘Whoa! Are you sure you want your nieces and nephews knowing that this man came to your house at three in the morning?’"

And every now and then, personal historians will find themselves in the position of writing a memoir for someone whose issues go beyond the usual family squabbles and marital woes. Personal historian Joella Werlin recalls a particularly awkward example: "I had a client who wanted to write a personal history. This is a woman who was a victim of incest very early on, since she was about three. Her story could have been an interesting exploration if it had been insightful, but she seemed preoccupied with sexual awakening; a lot of it seemed like fantasy. It had a tawdry, even nasty quality to it." In the end, Werlin did not write the woman’s memoir, an outcome she calls "a huge relief."

When confronted with such severe emotional problems, personal historians will generally back away and refuse to write the book. "We uncover really painful stuff," says Broder. "So if people want to cry with me, that’s okay, I’ll cry with them. But you have to draw a line. If I feel a client is getting into trouble, I’ll refer them to a therapist or a social worker."

When Broder started out, she did so armed with little more than a tape recorder and a note pad. Today, there is a growing realization that the field is a sight more complicated than that. Faced with an increasing number of ethical and practical concerns, many personal historians are calling for the establishment of professional industry standards. One of the more vocal proponents of such a move is Werlin. "We’re a very new profession, and most people don’t know what we do, let alone what to look for in a personal historian," she says. "There’s no academic degree for us, so the credibility of the profession is often called into question. Accreditation is the first step for personal historians to gain the respectability that I believe is necessary for every profession."

Last year, Werlin drafted a "Proposal to Establish Qualifications and Procedures for Professional Membership in the Association of Personal Historians." It proposed such measures as the implementation of "core competencies" ("attention to detail and historical accuracy"; "ability to meet deadlines"; "command of English grammar, spelling"). Much to Werlin’s disappointment, the APH rejected the proposal out of hand, an act that sharply divided the organization. "There were very passionate feelings on either side of this issue," says the APH’s then-president Elizabeth Wright. "But I don’t think we’re going to change our views at the moment — I don’t think we’re ready to do any kind of credentialing yet."

Despite the current lack of professional accreditation, Axelson-Berry says that industry standards are fairly high — or at least, her standards are. "I’m constantly astonished by how great these books are," she says. "I’m so proud of them. These are real books, extremely well-done, sensitive, informative, well-produced books, and I’m proud of that. It’s a wonderful thing to work on something and have it go out in the world. It’s very satisfying."

And yet the question remains: do such personal histories count as "real" books? Many would say no. "There is such a thing as telling a story, but art is something that has to transcend your own experiences," says local author Marcie Hershman, who last year published a memoir titled Speak to Me (Beacon Press). "Writing a life doesn’t mean writing a chronology; it means touching on a mystery, something that you can’t grasp. Whether these [personal histories] are something that will touch the truth of life rather than the facts — well, I doubt it."

Still, as some of these personal histories demonstrate, the simplest, most artless stories can reveal profound truths. "I bought a chair so that I could sit out near some particular trees," recalls Rusky Sun in his Detours and Adaptations. "The birds were singing and matched my whistle. I enjoyed that. My main purpose was to wait for [daughters] Lynda and Lucy to come home, but I never told them that. That’s not my personality.... I think that’s the main difference between men and women."

And then there’s Steve Bernstein’s rather curmudgeonly father, quoted in the epilogue of There’s a Book in Here Somewhere: " ‘Did I like the book? Did I like the book.’ He sighed and then remarked, with an air of certainty, ‘I would have picked different stories.’"

Elsewhere in the memoir, Bernstein recalls an incident in which his older brother, Billy, got involved in a fender-bender:

Our Uncle Dicky had always been a fantastic storyteller and practical joker. He heard about the incident and decided to have a little fun at Billy’s expense. Dicky called the house and asked me to put Billy on the phone but not to tell him who was calling. In a heavy Italian accent, Dicky started screaming something along the lines of, "You break-a my car, I break-a your face!"...

Billy calmly said, "Sir, I am sure we can resolve this altercation."

Then Dicky cut him off and snapped back, "Alteration? Alteration? I am notta tailor!"

A few months after the publication of the memoir, Bernstein’s brother was killed in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. "I think [the book] means more now than it did before September 11," Bernstein says. "I’m glad I did this, because it’s a way to memorialize Billy."

And that, insists Kitty Axelson-Berry, is what makes her business so rewarding. Personal histories, she explains, are not about the money or the fame, and they’re not simply an elaborate form of the talking cure. For Axelson-Berry, it’s all about what we leave behind. "Once we die," she says, "all that’s left are our stories."

Chris Wright can be reached at cwright[a]phx.com