In his book, Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell described 12 stages in a hero's or heroine's journey that we've applied to psychotherapy, the journey of self-discovery taken by brave people like Ellen, Susan, Vinny, Bill and Michelle.
1. The Ordinary World of the hero with its suffering, boredom and neurotic anguish.
2. A Call to Adventure when the ordinary world is no longer endurable and the hero is ripe for change.
3. Refusal of the Call when the hero is scared, even terrified at first, and avoids the challenge.
4. Meeting a Mentor who acknowledges, supports and spurs the hero onward.
Most people who come to A Psychotherapy Group in the Village are somewhere between the second and third stages. We help them take the plunge into the fourth stage and continue to acknowledge, encourage and support them through the later stages.
5. Crossing the First Threshold when the hero begins to feel really weird, and gets very scared.
6. Tests, Allies and Enemies when the hero feels greater stress and anxiety than ever before, is tempted to pack the whole thing in but finds people who can help, and often a few dangerous ones who can hurt.
7. Approach to the Inmost Cave where the hero glimpses the dark side of his true, hidden self, the side he's always denied for most of his life.
8. The Supreme Ordeal in which the hero attempts to use those parts of his true self that terrified and shamed him before.
9. Reward for Seizing the Sword when the hero slowly discovers new passion and begins to feel a steady, daily glow from harnessing the power of his true self.
10. The Road Back when the hero must adjust his new-found passion to the demands of the ordinary world, a trying time for imaginative heroes impatient with bureaucracies and the tedious people who inhabit them.
11. Resurrection when the hero glimpses his impending death, takes his "What have I done with my life?" exam and grades himself.
The people who come to A Psychotherapy Group in the Village at this stage are usually in their middle years, looking for more meaning, to get something richer and deeper from their lives.
12. Return with the Elixir when the hero shares what he's learned with younger heroes and heroines in the ordinary world.
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Village
160 Bleecker Street, 9C East, New York
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