Presentations
Last night I had the great pleasure of presenting the ideas of “Stories We Need To Know” at Watertown public library in one of their large, delightful conference rooms there. And what lovely people I had to speak with, too! I’d been in the marbled halls of Wheelock College the previous night speaking with The Boston Area Chapter of The Association for Psychological Type and the surroundings there were august indeed, so I’m beginning to like the feel of these generous meeting rooms. Better yet is the people I’ve been privileged to meet on both these occasions. I couldn’t have asked for a more supportive or a better set of folks.
What is most gratifying, though, is to address a room of comparative strangers (although I was thrilled to see a few friends there as well, to whom eternal thanks) and to notice that the idea of the six archetypes makes perfect sense to them - or at least to most of them. This happens whether I’m talking with therapists, with management consultants, Human Resources professionals, teachers, writers or readers. Some of them draw elegant parallels with Eric Erickson, Keegan, Bloom’s taxonomy, and other sets of theories I struggle to memorize and read up about later. Almost all seem to be very excited about it, too.
And that’s the most important thing. If people gain some wisdom and insight as a result of this book then there’s a good chance they can take it into the larger world and help to make it a place of understanding rather than conflict.
I couldn’t ask for more.
Thank you, thank you all.
on March 31st, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Dear Allan,
You are right about the archetypes making sense to people. I was talking to some friends at Toastmasters the other night and mentioned the archetypes while discussing my life path at Toastmasters.
They understood the concept perfectly, and the archetypes lent themselves well to discussing the stages I’ve gone through at Toastmasters - from the Innocent who thought ” Oh won’t it be fun to learn to speak in public.”, to the Warrior who was ready to quit but forged on through the assigned speeches, to the Magician who hopes to some day give encouragement to others who would like to learn how to give speeches.
. Several of my friends were interested in buying the book. so I wrote down the title and your name for them and told them to look for it at amazon.com.
And of course using the archetypes in that way was very helpful for me because I realized that in the Warrior stage I did have that moment of truth when I decided to fight on! That was very enlightening for me!
Thank you.
Peace and Blessings,
Jean
on April 1st, 2008 at 1:35 am
Dear Jean,
What a lovely thing to hear! Whenever the archetypes have resonance for people I’m overjoyed, perhaps a bit like a kid who’s discovered a new play ground and is happy to share it.
Once we know what we have to go through in one area of life (like the challenge of Toastmasters) we can see how we can mobilize the same energy for all areas of life. And you, as a yoga practitioner, will already be familiar with the way we have to watch our thoughts and reactions to challenges…
With all good wishes, Allan
on April 12th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
I have not read “Stories We Need to Know.” However, I read an article in “Balanced Life” and became interested enough to check out your website. After reading a little more on “Stories We Need to Know,” it sounded very much like the late Joseph Campbell. Is this book based upon the his theory?
on April 13th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Dear Diane,
Thank you for your comment - I’d have replied directly to your email but for some reason it won’t accept my reply, so I’m reduced to this method.
You are right in drawing the Campbell parallel. I’m delighted also that you saw the article in “Balanced Life” where I try in a very small space to spell out the ways that archetypes can be seen working. It’s is of course true that anyone exploring in this area is indebted to some extent to Campbell. That said, it’s a bit like saying that all modern science depends upon the findings of Newton! It’s a true statement, but not particularly illuminating.
You see, what we can observe by looking at archetypes is rather
different from many of the things Campbell said in his pioneering work.
The points that ‘Stories We Need To Know” makes about archetypes sort
out the almost complete confusion created on this topic by Jung,
Freud, Campbell and others. These people knew the mind; they knew some
mythology. What they didn’t know was literature - which is one of the
largest and most reliable sources of archetypes we have.
So when we go back to literature we can discover a far more reliable
and coherent structure than has been available until now. When I
present these archetypes in seminars to clinicians (like therapists,
psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health professionals) they all seem to
give a sigh of relief (which is validating, I have to say) and then
they get quite excited about how coherent this system is compared to the
sorts of things they’ve had to wrestle with for years. It’s not me
that’s made it coherent. The literature of the Western World has always
had this coherence. We just stopped being able to see it.
If you want to know more about the six archetypes I’d suggest you
browse my website some more, read the first chapter of “Stories” which
you’ll find there, or go to Amazon and buy the book. It’s not easy to
compress the whole of the book into an email, after all….
All good wishes,
Allan