Mimesis: healing through mythic play. (use of myth and ritual for healing)

OVER THE LAST 10 YEARS THERE HAS BEEN A GROWING interest in alternative processes of healing and change. There are men's groups that drum and mourn their lost fathers, workshops to nourish the child within, stories to free the wild woman, support groups for the adult children of dysfunctional families. Many seek to create new rituals, symbols, and mythic models in an attempt to bring about change, promote community, and give meaning to modern experience.

The forms and practices of these groups are very new and very old. Meditation, visualization, chanting, and healing touch are age-old methods that are beginning to gain broader acceptance in Western society. Traditional healers and shamans are joining with psychologists and medical doctors to explore the integration of religious and esoteric practices with the positivistic, scientific world of modern medicine. Some medical professionals are investigating the merits of Tai Chi, acupuncture, and Chi Gong, while mental health professionals are appropriating the use of ritual, trance, story, and suggestion from Native American and African shamans.

The use of myth and ritual for healing and the transformation of consciousness is one of the oldest and most universal therapeutic practices that is finding new expression and recognition. The use of drama and catharsis, dream incubation and interpretation, writing and storytelling as practiced in the healing temples of Asclepius (200 B.C.E.) feels strangely modern and avant-garde. The existence of theaters and spaces for meditation in these ancient hospitals was one of the many influences that led us to develop our workshops with myth and story, a process we call "Mimesis."

Over a 15-year period we have developed the Mimesis process, which involves acting out myths and stories as a form of both teaching and therapy. As a clinical psychologist and a professor of religion we brought very different worldviews and concerns to the exploration of myth. Initially we asked ourselves if it would be possible for modern people to tap the richness and healing power of myth that had nourished traditional cultures for thousands of years. Could students seeking to interpret and understand ancient texts connect with these stories in a deep way that was more than academic and intellectual? Could patients experience myth and story as a catalyst for healing? Through much trial and error and experimentation with ritualistic structures, safeguards, even mantras and music, we developed methods that have become the core of our workshops, groups, and classes.

Evelyn Laeuchli's interest in metaphor and story grew out of her work with children. As a clinical psychologist in private practice, she has practiced, taught, and supervised individual, child, and family therapy in numerous settings. All children are myth makers and use symbolic play for communication and mastery; work with children taught her the "art" of therapy that entails listening with a poet's ear and using metaphor, story, play, and imagination.

Samuel Laeuchli, a professor in the department of religion at Temple University in Philadelphia, began his career teaching ancient Christianity but later turned his focus to exploring symbolism, mythology, drama, and ritual. With students he experimented with alternative processes of studying myth, including dramatic reenactment. What happens when we act out a text, instead of merely thinking about it? The results are stunning: what we experience is frequently a reversal of the interpretations taught by academics and theologians. An entire spectrum of hidden agendas, of unconscious forces, and unexpected "meanings" comes to light. The development of the Mimesis process resulted from the recognition that play has to be taken seriously. Play puts great demands on us, demands for safety, structure, awareness. Mimesis is part scholarship, part art, part therapy.

As Evelyn developed her part of the process in hospital and clinic settings, she began to experience the inadequacy of biblical stories and Western myths to address women's experience free of a patriarchal bias. Since she worked with many sexually and physically abused women, she sought stories for empowerment: Lilith, Inanna. She began to work with fairy tales because they provided metaphors not only for women's abuse but also for their healing and development.

Samuel honed his art in evening courses at the university, which brought together undergraduate and graduate students from religion, dance, anthropology, psychology, theater, and English. Together we have led groups in churches and synagogues, universities, seminaries, hospitals, and treatment centers in this country and abroad. We have taught the process in seminars and courses, both at universities and in workshops designed for special groups (mental health professionals, ministers and rabbis, religious educators, social workers). A network of participants and supporters from the fields of religion, the arts, medicine, social work, and psycho-therapy has grown, and we have begun training others to use this process in their own settings.

In a Mimesis workshop, we use storytelling, meditation, imagery, and role-playing to explore the depth meaning of biblical stories, myths, and fairy tales. The ancient Christians claimed that a text has a "higher" meaning; some modern interpreters claim it has a "deeper" meaning. Both point to a meaning beyond the surface. In the play we discover that the tale, the event, the myth, is multilayered, complex, contradictory. It may have powerful, hidden, even threatening and dangerous connotations. (Kronos after all does destroy his offspring; Medea kills her children.) We talk about "mythic shock"; play reveals the unexpected. Present in the seemingly naive tales of antiquity is profound insight into human behavior and motivation as well as an undefended awareness of the brutality of life. It was God who hardened the heart of Pharaoh and killed the first-born of the Egyptians. When we play Exodus with inner-city teenagers, they do not miss the cruelty and viciousness of that tale, which the well-trained professor may totally miss in his lecture. The play brings up what analysis and reflection often try to keep away: the ruthlessness of the Christian or Jewish God, the violence of our history and tradition. In the Christmas tale the innocent children are murdered by Herod, while Jesus escapes to Egypt. Death is central to our celebration of birth.

Enacting a biblical text or a myth is very different from analyzing it, deconstructing it, or submitting it to historical or textual criticism. When people act out a story there is considerably less distance from the intensity and tragedy of these tales. A thousand thoughts, feelings, and…