Psychology and the Hero’s Journey
Attributing Outcomes: The Journey from Victim to Hero – Often the first step in the Hero’s Journey is learning to accept responsibility for our own lives. This article explores a concept called the “Locus of Control” and the process of building more effective, life-affirming meaning in our lives.
Enantiodromia: Dancing with the Shadow, Part I – In the Hero’s Journey we often see characters and people experience a 180-degree personality reversal, called an “enantiodromia.” Villains become heroes or heroes become villains. Timidity blossoms into confidence, or altruism into greed. Part I of this article explores the psychology of enantiodromias. Part II (below) examines several famous enantiodromias from literature.
Enantiodromia: Dancing with the Shadow, Part II – Enantiodromias are a common theme in the Hero’s Journey and in journey-type narratives. In this article, we explore enantiodromias in three pieces of literature: John Updike’s short story “The A&P,” Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha.
Gestalt’s Paradoxical Theory of Change – By far the most-read article on our site, this piece explores Gestalt psychology’s “Paradoxical Theory of Change,” which states that before we can become someone new, we must first become who we are. This paradox plays a critical role in the Hero’s Journey process.
Making Meaning of our Journeys – One of the most important—but often neglected—parts of the Hero’s Journey is building meaning from experience. This article explore how our journeys must include a stage for reflection and consolidation for them to become meaningful.
Ripening as a Hero’s Journey – In our culture we think of growth in quantifiable, measurable terms, but there is another kind of growth that is actually more important: the process of maturing. This article explores the concept of ripening as a Hero’s Journey.
Seeing with Soft Eyes: Envisioning Life’s “Larger Picture”: – Seeing with soft eyes means maintaining the focus needed to pursue our goals while, at the same time, keeping our vision open for other possibilities that may be available to us. Sometimes this means being able to see beyond the limits of our personal narrative to the opportunities that await on the periphery.
Self-Realization – To “realize” something is to bring it into being, to make it real. Often our quest in the Hero’s Journey is to realize a dream or a potential, to make it manifest in our lives. This article explores the Hero’s Journey as a process of self-realization.