A Note on the Peak Experience as a Personal Myth

Abstract

ONE of the most difficult problems for psychology is the fact that the psychologist must regard himself as a participant in the process which he is studying. He is both object and subject. There are, therefore, two complementary psychologies, the heirs of physical science and philosophy, reflecting this double viewpoint. One of the principal values of Maslow's recent focus of attention upon the peak experience is that aspect of psychology that attempts to point the way to wisdom for the subjectfor a humanity whose only actual experience is immersion in time.From this point of view, the valuable peak experience can be seen as fulfilling on a personal Ievel a function that myths have historically performed for whole peoples. This is true regardless of whether the peak experience is felt to be specifically mythical or religious in origin.There is widespread realization of the importance of myth in organizing man's attitudes for survival in the face of the human condition, and this is an important function that is quite independent of the truth of posited mythical beings. As a psychologist who has concerned himself with the primitive mythology of the American Indians, Erikson conveys a profound sense of the importance of myth in the larger context of evolution, where truth is equivalent to racial survival. He vividly shows how the mythology of the Yurok is designed to enhance the meaning of waiting and fishing, while that of the Sioux is designed to enhance the meaning of the hunt. In Joseph Campbell's analysis of the ritual love death, it becomes clear that even so apparently revolting and useless a thing as human sacrifice can be of critical importance in positioning a people for continuation, in spite of the exaggerations and imperfect calculations of the demands of the universe that such sacrifice embodies. For the act of planting and waiting patiently for the harvest requires a kind of faith that must have been difficult for early man to muster, especially in the face of frequent failure and famine. What image could be better suited to embody and make vivid the cyclic process involved than the death and rebirth of the god of grain? And what could serve to make this faith-engendering myth more vivid and accessible to the consciousness of the people than the sacrifice of a human incarnation of this god or goddess, especially since the universe's

The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Peak Experiences

“…The memory revives, in part, the original experience. It is somewhat like Warmoth's (1965) description of the peak experience as a personal myth. For instance:…”

Heroism Research: A Review of Theories, Methods, Challenges, and Trends

“…Long ignored by modern scholars (Franco, Blau, & Zimbardo, 2011), the phenomenon of heroism is finally attracting the serious attention of scientists from multiple disciplines, especially psychology (Allison, Goethals, & Kramer, 2017). The mythic views of heroism examined by Joseph Campbell (1949) resonated with the general public, and also influenced humanistic and existential psychology during the peak of the Third Force movement in psychology through the incorporation of mythic and personal narrative in psychotherapy, research, and philosophical inquiry (see, e.g., Feinstein, Krippner, & Granger, 1988;Warmoth, 1965;Washburn, 1990). Starting in the early 1980s, APA Society for Humanistic Psychology's (SHP) former Division President, Frank Farley, suggested that small acts of everyday heroism also deserved attention and study (Farley, 2011).…”

Introduction: Some perspectives on myth.

“…Jung (1961) began his autobiography by writing, "I have undertaken, in my eighty-third year, to tell my personal myth" (p. 3). Arthur Warmoth (1965) wrote about the way certain memorable events may become personal myths, fulfilling on a personal level functions that cultural myths have historically performed for entire societies. In 1973, Rollo May remarked that the "underlying function of psychotherapy is the indirect reinterpretation and remolding of the patient's symbols and myths" (p. 342) and in 1975he added, "The individual must define his or her own values according to personal myths... [because] authentic values for a given patient emerge out of the personal myth ofthat patient" According to May (1975), psychotherapy can best be described as the collaboration between therapist and patient in the adventure of exploring the patient's awareness of himself or herself and others. '…”