Exploring the Hero's Journey as a transformative experience : self-revelatory performance as personal therapy and healing

摘要

The intention of this research paper is to share with the reader my transformative experience of exploring the hero's journey through the process of qualitative research (heuristic and arts-based) and Drama Therapy (self-revelatory performance, dramatic projection, Developmental Transformations, embodiment, role and counter-role), including the spiritual practice of shamanism, and how confronting and assimilating shadow parts of myself allowed me to heal a fractured self-concept. I will be including my personal therapy experiences and how various Drama Therapeutic research methodologies were used to help aid in my healing of past traumatic events. The three-year therapeutic journey that I undertook to remove obstacles in my life ended with a culminating enactment (Emunah, 1994) in the form of my self-revelatory performance. The process constituted a self-revelatory journey into the underworld of my psyche to meet and express shadow qualities such as rage, jealously, sadness and guilt. The purpose of this journey was to learn about my own self-transformation by undertaking the hero's journey via a self-revelatory performance. This is my story of how an ordinary woman found within herself a mythical hero who saved the most precious thing in the entire world, herself; and then gave the ultimate boon to her community by showing them her process.