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Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, known as the “Hero’s Journey,” is an archetypal narrative found in legends, myths, and storytelling from all traditions that reflect the universal life story of trial and triumph. It tells of a hero who embarks on a journey, faces tribulations and trials, and, due to those, undergoes a profound transformation and returns with a newfound wisdom that he shares with others. This journey, often depicted in epic tales, can also serve as a metaphor for some individuals who struggle and transform themselves due to challenges with their mental health or experiences of trauma.
For many, the battle with mental illness symptoms is akin to the hero’s journey – a deep and complex process of navigating the unknown, having no control over their lives, and facing inner demons, but ultimately emerging more robust and more connected with themselves and their lives. This narrative framework can help individuals contextualize their struggles, offering guidance and hope as they navigate their growth path.
The Call to Adventure: The Onset of Mental Struggles
The first stage in the Hero’s Journey is “the call to adventure,” where the hero is presented with a challenge that disrupts their ordinary life. In mental health, this is seen when the first symptoms of mental illness start, making it impossible to continue everyday life due to symptoms of depression, anxiety, mood dysregulation, overwhelm, or constant angst.
The call may be sudden, like a panic attack, or gradual, like an uncomfortable sense of despair. Regardless of its form, the call to adventure in mental health is a request to confront one’s inner world and to face one’s wounded inner parts. This stage is laced with confusion, resistance, and fear. It is a time of profound contact with one’s vulnerability.
In many heroes’ stories, refusal is the initial response to their fear and confusion. Similarly, when facing mental illness, individuals can respond with denial or minimize their symptoms out of fear of the unknown. Denial can manifest in different ways. It can involve numbing the pain with substances, losing hope, or feeling overwhelmed by the magnitude of suffering and the path ahead. According to Campbell, the hero can refuse the call, but the call will continue to beckon until the hero accepts their journey.
Meeting the Mentor: The Importance of Support and Guidance
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”- Joseph Campbell
In the Hero’s Journey, after the refusal of the call, the hero often encounters a mentor or a guide who provides support and wisdom to help them navigate their journey. The mentor’s role in the journey is crucial in helping the hero move past their resistance. They provide a sense of hope, guidance, and knowledge that the journey, though difficult, is possible. The mentor helps the individual understand that they are not alone in their struggle and there is a path forward, even if it is not always visible.
In the mental health journey, the mentor or guide might be a therapist, a peer who has faced a similar struggle and found their way in life, a moving book or film, a supportive person who crossed our path, or a resource that resonates with our experience. Life will always place a guide in a hero’s life.
Crossing the Threshold: Making a Commitment to the Journey
“Perhaps all dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.” – Rainer Maria Rilke
Every Hero’s Journey includes a descent into the abyss, often called the “dark night of the soul.” This is the most intense and challenging part of the journey, in which the hero faces their greatest fears and vulnerabilities. It is a moment in which the hero loses control over their life and realizes there is no turning back. In order to move forward, they must surrender and accept this moment of despair where it seems as though all hope is lost. In mental health, the abyss can represent a panic attack, a severe depressive episode, suicidal thoughts, or any symptom that challenges them to their core.
However, the abyss is also a place of potential transformation. Only by accepting the reality of our current situation can we find a way to move forward. It is essential to seek help to achieve this transformation. The hero can be reborn from their pain with the right kind of support. With help, individuals can gain deep insights into their condition and grow they find the courage to face their darkest part.
The Path for Transformation: Emerging with New Insights
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” - Elizabeth Klübler-Ross
There are inspiring stories of individuals who struggled with mental health and were transformed by their experiences. For example, Kevin Hines was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at a young age. He struggled with not only severe mood swings that ranged from severe depression to manic episodes but also with psychosis and suicidal ideation. In 2000, Hines was struggling with severe depression and despair, which led him to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. Yet, in a miraculous twist, Hines survived the fall. A woman in a car saw him jumping and called the Coast Guard, and it was a miracle that he was rescued before he succumbed in the water. He was among the 1% who survived such a plunge. Hines later shared that he felt a profound sense of regret and a deep desire to live when he left the bridge. After his survival, Hines’s journey was harrowing and filled with numerous challenges and setbacks. However, he emerged with a profound understanding of the importance of mental health awareness and suicide prevention. Hines now dedicates his life to sharing his story, advocating for better support systems for those struggling with suicidal thoughts, and educating about mental health. His transformation is not only a personal recovery, but a shift in purpose – the wisdom he gained from his near-death experience became a mission to help others.
The Return - The Final Stage of a Hero’s Journey: Sharing the Gift with Others
“Your story is the key that can unlock someone else’s prison.” – Unknown.
Dr. Marsha Linehan is a pioneering psychologist and the creator of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), a lifeline for individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD), suicidal tendencies, and self-harm behaviors. However, what is less known is that Linehan’s groundbreaking work is rooted in her own struggles with mental illness. Linehan struggled with severe emotional dysregulation from a young age, leading to suicidal ideation, self-harm, and numerous psychiatric hospitalizations, involving seclusion, restraints, and electroconvulsive therapy. During her time in the hospital, she reached a point of deep despair. In her autobiography, Building a Life Worth Living - A Memoir, Linehan shared: “I was in hell, and I made a vow: when I get out, I will come back and get others out of here.”
After leaving the hospital, with the help of her psychiatrist, Linehan pursued a career in psychology, and in her research, she focused on suicidal behaviors and the psychological mechanisms underlying emotional dysregulation. She began to develop DBT, a therapy that would revolutionize the treatment of patients with severe emotional disorders. Linehan’s personal experience with her mental health profoundly influenced her work. She understood firsthand the intense pain that individuals with BPD and similar conditions experience. Linehan’s personal history and work is based in what she calls Radical Acceptance. “Acceptance is the only way out of hell,” she says. However, this acceptance is not passive; it is an active process of letting go of the struggle against reality, embracing life, and finding a way to move forward.
DBT has become one of the most widely effective treatments for BPD and other severe emotional disorders. It has given hope and understanding to individuals previously considered untreatable by equipping them with tools for a more stable life. Linehan has helped to reduce the stigma around mental illness through her openness about her own story and has inspired individuals to seek help and find treatment and support for their struggles. She has shown that it is possible to emerge from the depths of despair and use that experience to make a difference in the world. As Linehan once said, "We are all human, and we all have the potential to rise above our suffering and create something meaningful from it.”
The Hero Within All of Us
The Hero’s Journey is a powerful metaphor for the struggle and growth that lies within mental health challenges. It shows that while path is fraught with obstacles when we face that path with courage and seek support it can become a journey of profound transformation. It teaches us that within every person lies the potential for growth. By confronting our inner demons, seeking help, and persevering through trials, we can emerge wiser and with a deeper understanding of ourselves, leading to a life filled with purpose, hope, and connection. In the end, we are all heroes of our own lives, capable of facing our vulnerabilities because it is there that our strengths lie.
References
Campbell, J. (2008). The Hero with a Thousand Faces (3rd ed.). New World Library.
Hines, K. (2014). Kevin Hines. Kevin Hines. https://kevinhinesstory.com/
Linehan, M. M. (2021). Building a Life Worth Living: A Memoir. Random House.
About the Author
Andrea "Dea" Hintz is a social worker trainee at Anchored in Hope Counseling. She is a compassionate clinical therapist and physician from Brazil with 20 years of experience supporting diverse individuals in their healing and empowerment journeys.
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