The Heroine’s/Hero’s Journey—A Call for Transformation? Transformative Learning, Archetypal Patterns, and Embodied Knowing/Learning

Abstract

This article explores the phenomena of personal transformation within the frame of a self-experiential workshop, named the Heroine/Hero’s Journey. The Heroine/Hero is the archetype who sets out on an adventurous journey, in pursuit of her or his call for transformation. Rebillot based on Campbell’s (1949) mythological work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces created an experiential approach in the form of a one-week workshop, which utilizes methods from theatre and Gestalt therapy. This phenomenologically oriented vignette research draws on interviews and co-experienced observations, which were conducted during the workshop in order to explore the participants’ experiences and the content of participants’ transformation. The embodied representation of personality patterns, conscious and unconscious and especially the confrontation of these patterns, created transformative experiences for the participants. The depth psychological understanding of transformative processes, highlighting the potential of embodied and archetypal ways of knowing, provides the theoretical frame for giving meaning to these experiences.

Transformative Learning Through Group Coaching

“…All the more important was the role of the coaches in terms of creating a trusting space, for example, by bringing in their own personal possibly shameful topics and failures. As Lehner (2022) points out, facilitating transformative learning requires the coaches to engage in their own transformative learning, take a critical view on their own inner and outer dynamics, needs, challenges, limitations, or vulnerabilities.…”

Storying and Recovering the Self: A Journey Towards Transformation in Men in Addictions and Trauma Recovery

“…Transformation of one's self and actions towards becoming a better person is a trope witnessed in Disney films and Star Wars episodes (Campbell & Moyers, 1988), previously explored in the transformative learning literature (e.g., Buergelt & Paton, 2018), and having led to the creation of Hero's Journey workshops and retreats (e.g., Lehner, 2022; see also the mythopoetic men's movement, e.g.,; Mechling & Mechling, 1994). It is a myth that connects and inspires us (Lehner, 2022;Willans, 2012). However, it is also important to note the continuity of self in these transformations: it is telling that Saul did not change his name to "Peter" or something unrelated.…”

“…The Hero’s Journey (Campbell, 1949/2008) presents a powerful frame for meaning making. It has formed the basis of transformative adult education programming (Lehner, 2022; O’Shea & Stone, 2014), and has been directly connected to the process and theory of transformative learning (Ross, 2019; Willans, 2012). As was popularized by great mythologist Campbell (1949/2008), the archetypal hero follows a well-trod path: after ultimately heeding the call to adventure, the Hero descends into the unknown, receives support of others in facing challenges and temptations, dies (either literally or figuratively), and is then reborn transformed, before returning to the community and bringing back the lessons learned along the way.…”

Artistic Research, Healing, and Transformation: Shared Stories of Resilience

“…While Mezirow’s (1991) early articulation of the transformative process posited critical reflection through cognitive and rational approaches as the source of emancipatory learning (Lehner, 2022), the theory has since broadened to include holistic aspects of experiences, such as “intuitive, imaginary, bodily, depth-psychological, spiritual and relational” (p. 92). Writing about her discoveries based on the archetypes in The Heroine/Hero’s Journey , Lehner (2022) observes like Formenti and West (2018) have done before, that a transformative experience involves self-knowing and attending to ways of knowing where one must find the courage to “engage with and learn from the other and otherness, not least in ourselves” (Lehner, 2022, p. 92 as cited in Formenti & West, 2018). Illuminating Lehner’s (2022) conception of individuation or the process of gaining a clearer sense of self (Cranton & Roy, 2003), students in our course found themselves opening up to new frames of reference through an inner journey of questioning and receptivity (Cranton & Roy, 2003).…”

“…Writing about her discoveries based on the archetypes in The Heroine/Hero’s Journey , Lehner (2022) observes like Formenti and West (2018) have done before, that a transformative experience involves self-knowing and attending to ways of knowing where one must find the courage to “engage with and learn from the other and otherness, not least in ourselves” (Lehner, 2022, p. 92 as cited in Formenti & West, 2018). Illuminating Lehner’s (2022) conception of individuation or the process of gaining a clearer sense of self (Cranton & Roy, 2003), students in our course found themselves opening up to new frames of reference through an inner journey of questioning and receptivity (Cranton & Roy, 2003). As thinking and feeling beings, they recognized that boundaries between rational thinking and affect are often blurred (Sherman, 2021), and that their learning process extended beyond “cognitive transformation and affective experience to include the broader definition of embodiment, embodied learning” (p. 34).…”