schizophrenia and the hero's journey

My first post of many on the nature of madness.

Really fascinating talk. If you aren't familiar with Campbell's work "The Hero with a Thousand Faces," I recommend reading it. Join my book club and hit me up, I'll shoot you the .epub. If you're short on time, just wiki it. Both links at the bottom of this post.

There are themes present during psychosis, even amongst differentiated schizophrenics. The themes share commonalities with Campbell's mono-mythic hero journey in uncanny parallel. Eerily so. Successful recovery from psychotic breaks often align with the resolution of mythic conflict, a process observed by psychologist John Weir Perry. More on him in later posts.

The breaks are far from random, they're self-contained hero journeys that take place solely in the mind. It's suggested that these themes are shared across cultures, as core essence to the development of the human psyche. Descriptions and narrative art following these same themes are dated way back to the neolithic era.

This is the premise of CG Jung's Archetypes. Jung refers to this process as a "nekyia," "katabasis," or "night sea journey." His own experiences served as foundation to The Red Book.

https://www.wnyc.org/story/dr-joseph-campbell-inward-journey-schizophrenia-and-mythology/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces