The Hero-Journey,Hamlet and Positive Psychological Transformation

Abstract

Joseph Campbell’s proposal that the lives of human beings might be seen as variations on a single unifying grand narrative, provides the energy for this article. From a therapeutic perspective, Campbell’s monomythic metaphor of the hero-journey suggests that individuals may choose how they respond to challenging life events, and his pantheon intersects with humanistic principles of self-actualization and traditional concepts of psychospiritual transformation and growth. Thus, the painful passage through trauma may lead to greater awareness of the self and enhanced psychological functioning. In this work, the plotline of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and its protagonist, arguably the most traumatized hero in literature, are presented alongside a bare and heavily edited text of Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces to provide one simple case reading. In addition, models incorporating S. Grof and C. Grof’s paradigm of psychospiritual transformation and Tedeschi and Calhoun’s posttraumatic growth are used to establish a link to current therapeutic practice that test the utility of Campbell’s metaphor in this context. It is hoped that the simultaneous weaving of Campbell’s and Shakespeare’s work with humanistic psychology’s core principles will shed further light on the experiences of individuals affected by trauma and their opportunities to become heroines and heroes.