Carl-Gustav Jung

Odysseus, Luke Skywalker, and the Quick Fix

OdysseusAfter the end of the Trojan War, Odysseus could not find the way home for a minute or so. But then, a magic compass fell from the sky which brought him back to Ithaca in no time and without any trouble.

The end.

This is how Homer´s legendary Odyssey would have to be written in our time. Pity! One of the truly great pieces of literature goes down the drain.

The Hero’s Journey as a short trip?

The Odyssey is the prototype of a Hero’s Journey, a distinctive narrative structure in which a hero, reluctantly at first, embarks on a long and perilous journey, is confronted with trials and tribulations on the way, only to succeed in the end, oftentimes after being severely wounded. During that journey, he meets one or several (supernatural) mentors and discovers a (magic) elixir which helps him to fight his enemies. After winning the battle against the final enemy, he returns to the world from which he came. He has gained power and knowledge, and even wisdom – and is typically granted a long and prosperous life.

These kinds of stories exist in every corner of the world, and all cultures. Another important example is the Indian national epic Ramayana. But even today, many successful books and movies are based on this storyline. For example, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and the original Star Wars-Trilogy are archetypal Hero’s Journeys.

There´s one distinctive feature that all these stories have in common: They tell the story of an inward journey, the protagonist´s way to find himself. The ultimate goal is purification of the hero´s character, it´s about the process of growing up and maturing. Yet, for the purpose of vividness, in literature and film, all places and characters are depicted as being part of the external word. But the story is not all about defeating exterior enemies. The whole voyage is a rite of passage, the ultimate objective is to accept the tasks and responsibities for which one is destined for.

The process of maturation happens by means of all kinds of trials and conflicts: Odysseus has to come to terms with prototypical human frailties such as being unable to resist temptation. Frodo´s task is to rid himself of greed and to recognize his own power and self-efficacy. Luke Skywalker has to learn how to transform the undesirable parts of his personality, those that he shares (to some extent) with his “Dark Father” (arrogance, anger, violence etc.). Generally speaking, the task of the hero is to learn how to integrate his shadow, as C. G. Jung, the founder of Analytical Psychology, has named it.

We have (no) time

The point is: apart from the narrative structure, all these stories share the following aspect: The travelling lasts for several months, often years. Odysseus was lost at sea for a decade after the Trojan War. Frodo and Luke (assumedly) travelled for months and years before reaching Mordor and Endor. Why? Because maturation, growing up, finding ourselves: it just takes a lot of time.

Against this background, I am critical of most modern varieties of “personality development” (in the broad sense). These days, everything is to happen super-quickly. Faster and higher is the motto, but – at best – without any effort:

  • A man has low self-esteem? A couple of positive affirmations will do.
  • A woman wants to generate a stable income by becoming self-employed? She can just “order” her customers directly from the universe via visualization.
  • A boy cannot concentrate properly at school? Just give him some Ritalin.

Brave new world. Let us return to my version of the Odyssey:

After the end of the Trojan War, Odysseus could not find the way home for a minute or so. But then, a magic compass fell from the sky which brought him back to Ithaca in not time and without any trouble.

Nobody would desire to read a book or watch a movie based on this plot. We´d say: “The story was dull and lifeless, and totally implausible. Oh, and the protagonist was flat and faceless, I could not relate to him.”

But in real life, it´s supposed work this way?

What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes? Herein lies the key to your earthly pursuits.

I recently stumbled upon this quote by Carl Gustav Jung, the founder of Analytic Psychology. Though I feel that people can change considerably over the course of a lifetime, Jung reminds us that we may possess an unchangeable core, e.g., a set of “drives” or “needs” that stay the same throughout our lives, to be manifested through different activities and vocations (please see the article on self-determination theory on the link to Positive Psychology).

Jung-Pursuits

The Upsides of Suffering: On Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG) and the Wounded Healer Archetype

Chiron_teaching_AchillesDoes a heart surgeon need to have suffered from a heart attack in order to be a top-notch heart surgeon? Probably not. Does a psychotherapist need to have suffered from depression in order to be a top-notch psychotherapist? Probably not. But in the latter case, it might still help a lot. The difference: whereas in the first case, the patient lies in the operating room, in the second case, a hell of a lot of empathy is needed.

In Greek mythology, there´s the character of the centaur Chiron. Among other attributes, Chiron is the epitome of the Wounded Healer. He is frequently depicted as one of the greatest healers of his time – but was accidently hit by Hercules with a poisoned arrow, resulting in the only wound that he could not heal. And that might have turned him an even better healer.

By now, there´s a lot of evidence that prior personal experience with psychological distress (broadly speaking) is a strong driver for people to seek a career in coaching, counseling, and psychotherapy. Very recently, a study was published that additionally suggests that such a personal wound might also make them better a what they do compared to their unharmed colleagues.

In a paper by the name of Survivor mission: Do those who survive have a drive to thrive at work? the researchers (including Penn´s Angela Duckworth) investigate this issue using samples of police detectives (with and without a history of violent victimization) and mental health workers (with and without a history of mental illness). Their results indicate that police detectives who have experienced violent victimization and mental health professionals who have experienced the same mental illness as their clients do indeed exhibit greater work engagement than their colleagues who lack these parallel life experiences. The link between firsthand experience of client’s hardships and work engagement appears to be explained by higher levels of grit among police detectives and by a greater sense of life-narrative continuity among mental health professionals. In a nutshell:

Wounded Healers seem to try harder and experience a stronger sense of meaning in what they do.

These findings strongly resonate with a broader strand of research (in Positive Psychology) that investigates the phenomenon of Posttraumatic Growth (PTG). It is true that suffering a psychological trauma leaves a lot of people shattered. But that is by far not the only possible trajectory. Many people manage to reach a markedly higher level of psychological functioning some time after the trauma then they were at before. Specifically, successfully coping with a trauma can lead to:

As Nietzsche said: “What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.” That´s part of the the sheer beauty of the human soul.