The Making of Everyday Heroes: Women's Experiences With Transformation and Integration. (July 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ross, Susan L.
• Other Names: Franco Zeno E. guest-editor.; Efthimiou Olivia guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Journal of humanistic psychology. Volume 59:Number 4(2019)
• Page Start: 499
• Page End: 521
• Publication Date: 2019-07
• Subjects: transformation -- integration -- Jung -- wholeness -- transformational travel -- transpersonal psychology -- hero's journey -- goddess -- rites of passage -- peak experience -- and initiation; Humanistic psychology -- Periodicals; 150.192
• DOI: 10.1177/0022167817705773
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0022-1678

Abstract

Heroes are not born heroic. They achieve prominence because they dare to enter into a voyage to become an entirely different human being: to transform. What happens to the hero on return? This is a qualitative investigation into the experience of integrating a transformative journey in the lives of seven women, 1 to 3 years after life-changing travel. The method used was cooperative inquiry, a heuristic approach involving cycles of action and reflection to construct knowledge based on shared lived experiences and group analysis. Coresearchers convened over a period of 13 months to examine the question, "What is our experience of integrating transformation?" Findings yielded an underlying pattern comprising nine phases: (1) displacement, (2) grief and denial, (3) disorientation, (4) dismemberment, (5) surrender and healing, (6) birth, (7) abundance and creativity, (8) power, and (9) integration. A major outcome identifies the integration of transformation as a feminine descent into one's underworld, delineating a feminine complement to the already well-documented hero's journey. One unexpected result shows that in combination, the journey's ascent (transformative peak experiences) cultivates one's masculine; the descent (integrative deep experiences) develops one's feminine. Together, these rounds form an upright figure eight, a wholly realized transformation.