Why is the story of the hero archetype so popular across cultures worldwide? What does it whisper to us as humans?
The Hero’s Journey provides a robust framework for understanding the therapeutic process because it addresses core human experiences. It affirms that struggle is part of growth, reinterprets setbacks as essential trials, and recognises the bravery in vulnerability. For therapist and client alike, this narrative offers a way to make sense of the unpredictable landscape of healing. It shifts the idea of therapy from a linear process to an epic journey, one that honours every step and both the pain and the triumphs.
In his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell, the mythologist, explores the psychological development of the Hero archetype across cultures and throughout history. From the earliest stories of the Greek gods of Olympus, the Hero’s journey is a tale of challenge, self-discovery and transformation. It encompasses the essence of what it is to be human and the struggle and messiness of our experience of life. Campbell described the journey in stages: The Call to Adventure, Crossing the Threshold, Trials, Helpers, Abyss, Transformation, and the Return. Each stage mirrors the personal struggles and triumphs we encounter in the pursuit of wholeness.
These stages reflect the therapeutic journey, too.
In psychology, an archetype is a set pattern of behaviour. The hero archetype represents overcoming obstacles to achieve specific goals. It is a metaphor for a psychological journey to return to one’s true feelings and unique potential—what the psychologist Carl Jung called individuation, becoming a unique whole.
Jung wrote in Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
“The hero’s main feat is to overcome the monster of darkness: it is the long-hoped-for and expected triumph of consciousness over the unconscious.” (Jung, 1959, para. 284)
The decision to seek therapy is in itself heroic. Therapy often begins with a sense of dissatisfaction, a sense of heaviness, or a longing for change. A feeling that we can do better or be better. A whisper that something isn’t right, a wake-up call that keeps coming back at you until you answer its call. This is the Call to Adventure.
Crossing the Threshold is the moment of commitment. Just as the hero heeds the call, so too does the therapy client, taking their first steps into the unknown. It requires courage to admit vulnerability and confront what was previously avoided or denied. People become the heroes of their own lives when they get fed up with being victims of their own lives.
Every epic quest involves resistance—both external and internal. Fears and doubts test the resolve of the would-be hero. In therapy, this might manifest as anxiety or defensiveness, a reluctance to revisit painful memories, or scepticism about the process itself. But the Hero rarely travels alone; allies and mentors appear, offering guidance, wisdom, and encouragement. The therapist becomes a compassionate witness, holding a lantern aloft to illuminate paths previously obscured by shadow. The Hero client is not passive on the journey. A therapist aims to help the Hero develop autonomy and resilience. They encourage their “fellow traveller”, as Irvin Yalom described the therapeutic relationship between client and therapist, to draw on internal and external resources and allies beyond the therapeutic space to help fortify the Hero for what is to come.
The challenge in life and therapy is to confront old wounds, deep-seated beliefs, and patterns that sustain suffering. It asks the hero to face what is most feared and to confront their resistance, discomfort, and grief.
The therapist becomes the secure base, or anchor, for the client to explore their shadows and the pain that may have long been buried. Each moment of vulnerability, each insight, serves as a rite of passage and another step on the Hero’s journey. The therapeutic space is both a sanctuary and a battleground, where transformation is forged not in comfort, but by bravely facing the difficult.
Of course, every heroic journey involves a dark night of the soul. In therapy, this may be a crisis point, a breakthrough that feels like a breakdown, or a reckoning with deep-seated trauma or existential despair. Here, the old self is surrendered, illusions dissolve, and the possibility of renewal emerges. This is the point at which the hero may feel most lost and most vulnerable, yet it is here that transformation begins. The therapist offers a steady presence and unwavering belief in the client’s capacity to weather the storm.
Fear often feels like a dragon, monster, or beast we must defeat. But in truth, it is a mirror, reflecting parts of ourselves. Overcoming fear doesn’t come from battling it, but from softening toward it—stopping the fight within. This shift requires humility, which often arises when we recognise our own limitations. From this place of surrender, a different Self can emerge. Insights surface, old wounds begin to heal, and the scattered parts of our consciousness start to come together. Transformation doesn’t happen in one sudden moment of revelation — it unfolds gradually, through a merging of understanding, acceptance, and action.
The goal of therapy is to help clients begin to rewrite their story, seeing themselves not as victims of circumstance but as protagonists in their own stories. The hero’s identity is reshaped and instilled with newfound wisdom and strength. It is to acknowledge that love is what we are born with, and fear is what we learn. The hero has crossed the threshold, met his own dark side, and faced the metaphorical abyss. Courage is not the absence of fear; it is overcoming it.
But the journey does not end with transformation. When the hero returns from the journey, having transformed himself, he is no longer a “hero”; he returns to his old life as himself, but transformed through insight and growth.
In therapy, this means integrating new perspectives, skills, and insights into our daily lives. Setbacks, moments of doubt, and encounters with old patterns are inevitable, yet there remains a belief that change is both possible and sustainable.
Like the Hero’s Journey, therapy isn’t a straight path. Every ending signifies a new beginning; each return calls us to another adventure. It encourages us to honour our struggles, celebrate our growth, and keep striving for wholeness.
Within each of the clients I see lies a hero—sometimes unsure, often brave, always capable of change. The therapist, as witness and guide, helps light the way, but it is the client who walks it. In recognising the hero within, we start together on the most profound journey there is: the path towards healing, meaning, and self-discovery.
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