Please Help Me Use Mythology In a Psychiatric Hospital

Introducing people of all ages to mythology... in pre-college educational curricula, youth orgs, the media, etc. Share your knowledge, stories, unit and lesson plans, techniques, and more.

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AlexeiSoma
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Please Help Me Use Mythology In a Psychiatric Hospital

Post by AlexeiSoma »

Hi All,

This is my first post here as I've just joined the message board. I am hoping that you guys can help me with your knowledge of myths and their power.

I am a graduate social work student in New York University and I've just begun an internship at a psychiatric hospital in Queens. Observing therapy groups done with adolescent boys, I realized that what can really interest them and connect with them are myths! I want to develop a curriculum to create a group therapy that uses myths (and possibly some accompaniment on a guitar) and I really need help. Any ideas?

These young men have suffered psychotic breakdowns due to depression/anxiety/a lack of initiation and a lack of dreams. Many of them lack role-models and lack any support in the home. Some of them may be victims of various kinds of abuse. Many of them are from the "inner-city". I am looking for stories that:

1. Can give them a sense that others have gone through deep struggles like they are going through and have come out triumphant.
2. That instill awesome values in them.
3. That make them feel like a human being can do something wonderful with their lives, even if their start is not so great.
4. That give them coping skills/ideas/frameworks of any kind to deal with their environment, their fears, their struggles.

Ultimately, I would like to create a curriculum like this for adolescent girls as well. They meet in separate therapeutic groups.

Any help at all would be much appreciated. Thank you,

Alex

Clemsy
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Post by Clemsy »

Hi Alex, anmd welcome to the JCF Forums.

Marvelous project. What comes to mind, and given the hour I'm impressed that anything did, I would find a medium in which they were comfortable telling their stories. Wouldn't that be the first step? Unfortunately, the educational system does not give a lot of opportunity to write personal essays which results, tragically, in so many kids not really knowing who they are or what their issues are. Self exploration is not valued.

I'm reminded of Power of Myth, episode 1, where Prof. Campbell talks about being ruled by a system, and how that can rob us of our humanity if we don't learn to operate within it as human beings by finding what vitalizes us.

Inner city kids in particular are digested by the system. They are made anonymous.

Telling their own stories could help the find their identity?

But provide them a sketch of the Hero Journey. Explain the stages. Have them identify where they are in it. (Journey through the underworld?) Have them identify the different archetypes of the journey. Who's the goddess? Who's the wise old man? Where is the threshold? Who is the Trickster? What's the monster? What is objective? What will bring fulfillment? If they don't know, how can they find out?

Have them rap their stories?

That's my take for now. I'm sure Cindy, our resident Jungian, will have some valuable insights to add.

Alex, good luck to you. You have what the Buddhist was call a 'right occupation.'

Cheers,
Clemsy

PS: Queens? Creedmore?
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

AlexeiSoma
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Post by AlexeiSoma »

Hi Clemsy,

Thanks for the welcome and thanks for getting back to me so fast (and early)! And also thank you for the ideas. To be honest, I am developing this idea based on what a man named Kwame Scruggs is doing in Akron, Ohio with inner city youth. He plays the drums and tells the young men a myth. Then there is an in-depth discussion of relating that myth to the lives and stories of each boy. That is the basic format, I am sure it's developed far better than that. I just got in touch with him yesterday, and he told me that of the 23 boys in his program who are seniors, 21 will be enrolling in college - this program has been really awesome and successful. Here's a link to their page:

[http://www.alchemyinc.net/]

So, what I'm looking for is: what stories can I use in a similar way? Any thoughts, Clemsy? One that Kwame has sent me already is the Parzival story. There we can look at how the process of growing up has failure as an inherent part of it, and that this failure IS the journey on your way to finding your true gifts and purpose and way towards becoming the king you were born to be. What other stories could I use with these guys? Or stories that would work for a girls group? [/url]

Clemsy
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Post by Clemsy »

Off the top of my head I'd recommend the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. This is one of my favorites since it incorporates so much stuff that can be read on a psychological level: reconciliation with the father (big one for the demographic you're working with) and confronting the 'beast' within... after which the hero replaces the father.

That's it for now. Scruggs' program sounds spot on.

Let us know how it goes. I'll get back to you if anything else pops up.
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

AlexeiSoma
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Post by AlexeiSoma »

Clemsy,

Theseus and the minotaur! Yes! That is an awesome one, thank you. Gonna' go brush up on that one right now.

JamesN.
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Post by JamesN. »

Dear AlexeiSoma; Gerald Caplan, M.D., F.R.C.Psych article titiled " Loss, Stress, and Mental Health " published in the Community Mental Health Journal, Vol. 26, No.1, February 1990 may offer some interesting insight and be of some help. What a wonderful thing you are doing. I wish you much success.

AlexeiSoma
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Post by AlexeiSoma »

JamesN, thank you. I'll check it out when I'm at my university and have easy access to the journals. Thanks!

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Post by Andreas »

Hi Alexei,

I too want to wish you good luck with what you are doing. Here is a thread that it might be useful to you.

http://www.jcf.org/new/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2695
“To live is enough.” ― Shunryu Suzuki

Cindy B.
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Post by Cindy B. »

Hi, Alexei.

I also wish you good luck with this project. But...

...I also want to offer a word of caution. (So you know, once upon a time I worked in psychiatric hospital with severely disturbed adolescents, kids with the same sort of problems that you mentioned.) How you reframe for those kids the aggression and violence common to mythological stories will be very important, something to keep in mind as you go along and that the kids will need to be reminded of frequently. No doubt you understand where I'm coming from.

Let us know how it goes. :)

Cindy
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

Clemsy
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Post by Clemsy »

Cindy, good advice. Andreas, good link. Reminded me:

Grail quest.
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

AlexeiSoma
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Post by AlexeiSoma »

Cindy,

Thank you, that's excellent advice. I am going to be very careful. And thank you for the link!

AlexeiSoma
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Post by AlexeiSoma »

Thank you for the link, Andreas!

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Post by N8N »

I am certainly no doctor. But If I see a fire I use water to put it out. If a picture is hanging too far to the right I move it left to balance it. Treating Psych patients with Mythology just seems odd. I would think to balance someone who has lost touch with reality, I would add healthy dose of reality.

tbeusse
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Post by tbeusse »

N8N wrote:I am certainly no doctor. But If I see a fire I use water to put it out. If a picture is hanging too far to the right I move it left to balance it. Treating Psych patients with Mythology just seems odd. I would think to balance someone who has lost touch with reality, I would add healthy dose of reality.
Sure, if the human mind was as simple as a fire.

"Reality" is subjective. It's not the fact that existence exists, it's the fact that it cannot be confined into a single viewpoint. To a child who has lived with abuse, neglect, fear and loathing, reality is an ugly thing. Positivity and inspiration are the keys here, reworking what these kids know and trying to help them overcome their personal problems.

The most inspiring thing I can think of is that the labryinth is thoroughly known.

bodhibliss
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Post by bodhibliss »

Hello Alex,

I'd like to recommend two books by John Weir Perry, a Jungian-oriented psychiatrist who founded Diabasis in the sixties, a program that addressed schizophrenia (unfortunately, despite a stellar success rate, given the considerable investment of time on the part of psychiatristic staff in this intensive, expensive treatment program, the medical insurance industry shifted toward drug treatment in the 70s and programs like Diabasis faded away).

Perry identified elements in the visions, voices, and hallucinations of schizophrenic patients that corresponded to the hero's journey, as identified by Joseph Campbell - except that Perry was unfamiliar with Campbell when he tumbled to this realization. His classic book published in 1966, Lord of the Four Quarters: Myths of the Royal Father doesn't mention Campbell at all i the index - but it's a fascinating read for anyone in your field.

Michael Murphy, co-founder of the Esalen Institute, put Joseph Campbell together with John Weir Perry in the mid-sixties for what became the first of a regular tradition of workshops on myth and mental illness (a collaboration that continued up until the year before Campbell's death, when he and Perry participated in a presentation with Jerry Garcia and Mickey Hart on "Ritual & Rapture: From Dionysus to the Grateful Dead).

Joe does appear in the index of the second work by Perry I'll recommend - The Far Side of Madness, published in 1974, which makes the case that visionary experiences accepted in primal cultures are often mis-interpreted as mental illness by the psychiatric establishment.

These both remain on my bookshelf, but it's been several years since I've opened their pages - but if memory serves, you may be able to glean a few useful nuggets.

Namaste,
bodhibliss

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