Full Description
A combination of therapy and expertise in literature, this book explains the six archetypes derived from 4,000 years of literature and how they may guide unhappy people seeking meaning in their lives. Holding up the great books as the best way to understand these timeless story elements, the discussion devotes a chapter to each of the six archetypes: the innocent, the orphan, the pilgrim, the warrior-lover, the monarch pair, and the magician. Story structures are shown to be particularly suited to therapy with adolescents, many of whom have never stepped away from television and the shopping mall long enough to understand their unmet spiritual needs.
Contents
Chapter 1 What if there is a road-map to personal growth? What if that map exists in our culture's literature? Chapter 2 An overview of the six archetypal stages and what it means to work with archetypes. Chapter 3 A discussion of the individual stages: The Innocent. Chapter 4 The Orphan: Looking for something to attach to. Chapter 5 The Pilgrim: Looking for meaning. Chapter 6 The Warrior-Lover: The twinned attributes of love and decisiveness that must be mastered, even if they seem contradictory at first sight. Chapter 7 The Monarch Pair. The alliance between the King and Queen, 'male' power and 'female' compassion. Chapter 8 The Magician: Bringing out the best in others. Chapter 9 The Road to Magician Level, and the Role of the Ego. Chapter 10 The Archetypes and their Sub-Stages. Part II Chapter 11 Where Did these Ideas Come From? A specific assessment of how this theory of the stages came about, the empirical research, and a case history. Part III Chapter 12 The Stages as Reflected in Literature. The Odyssey, the Oresteiad, Sophocles' Oedipus, the New Testament, and Sir Gawain. Chapter 13 The Literature, the Modern Period: Shakespeare, Marlowe, James, Dickens, Conrad, and J. K. Rowling. Chapter 14 What the Literature has Shown: The way we human beings make sense of our life-journeys. Chapter 15 Identifying Stages of Development in Oneself and Others: And why this is essential. Chapter 16 Love and Creativity: How to nurture them, and the way towards peace.
