From the Depths

Working with archetypes can reveal much about our gay psyches

BY BRIAN CARLSON, MA

Episode II: I Need a Hero

Long before I ever knew I was gay, I began to realize that I was different from my peers and I began to look for something other than what was expected of me. By the time I reached my 20s I was empty-handed and still looking. Now I realize all of my achievements were a measure of resistance to limitations set in place by my fathers, personal and otherwise, and rooted in the unconscious discrimination of my sexual orientation. Because of this, I believed that I was limited and that I had to prove my worth. I was in a constant state of, “I’ll show you.”

Endless treading through empty victories left me hollow. By the time I reached my mid-30s, I fell into the shadowy side of our gay culture and made choices that I would eventually come to regret. I was caught in a symbological deficiency—a lack of meaning. It originated in my rural, hometown community. I did not have gay role models or mentors to pave my way. Like those lost before me, the legacy of isolation and the role of scapegoat had overcome me.

There is a fine line that separates the scapegoat and the hero—they are two sides of the same coin. The hero is willing to explore and conquer unknown territory—a rebel and a traitor, he blazes a trail of hope for the scapegoat and includes the scapegoated in something larger. Furthermore, the hero is and will always be a scapegoat by the threat he poses to an already homogenized way of life.

In his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1973), Joseph Campbell outlines the criteria of the hero. Let it be known that if anyone supposes to know anything about the hero, then they would know that the primary criteria that constitutes the hero is a journey.

Campbell’s description of the hero’s journey is broken down into six stages: “the call to adventure … refusal of the call … supernatural aid … the crossing of the first threshold … the belly of the whale and the return and integration with society.” Campbell goes on to magnify these stages in nearly 400 pages utilizing classical myth, literature, and fairy tale. In the name of simplicity, the one aspect that I would like to highlight here is the subsection of the fifth stage titled “Atonement with the Father.”

Who is the father?

The father that I am referring to is the archetypal father. He is not necessarily an individual’s actual father but rather an inner idealized, imagined father. Think of the archetypal father as a representation of manhood, the criteria for being a man that is represented in the collective, patriarchal worldview. This archetypal father sets boundaries and conditions for success within those boundaries, thereby creating safety but also limitations. Like an ecosphere, the archetypal father is a self-generated engine conditioned to produce and extrapolate self-produced fuel from within to insure its successes and its survival.

On a greater plane, there is an even larger father image—the great father that, regardless of religious affiliation, represents each person’s individual god image.

What does “atonement with the father” mean here?

The most fascinating way to look at this question is the breakdown of the word atonement. “At-one-ment”, which suggests an internal experience, such as at peace with oneself, reconciled—reconciled with our past, and our “self.” In this case I suggest it is also reconciliation with the archetypal father.

I propose there are three stages to reconciliation.

First, we must not become a victim to our circumstances. It is important that the scapegoat archetype not possess us to the extent that we resist and resent our exile, and remain captive to the scapegoat archetype. If this is the case, our inner hero may never emerge and the “would-be hero” becomes a lost martyr.

Second, we must not vilify those patriarchal figures before us. Remember, it was our fathers’ hero journeys that created the patriarchal structure where our journey is rooted. Without the first journey, our “self” revelation and “self” reconciliation would not exist.

Third, we accept others and ourselves as we are. “Self” reconciliation allows each of us to posses a hero’s bounty and only that bounty can be measured against that of the heroes before us, our fathers.

These three stages are clearly easier said than done. Although, with strength and bravery the value of these heroic accomplishments is all the greater. Once the archetypal hero is evoked, he has the ability to redeem his people from “sin” … the sins of the father and his patriarchal restraints.

Over the years, the LGBT community has taken on the “sins of the father” as we bore the scarlet letter of pervasive discrimination for presumed sins against God and nature. Personally, I perpetuated this legacy as well. I unconsciously allowed myself to take on the projections and expectations of my fathers, embracing shame for culturally assigned sins, in hopes that I would be accepted. Caught in a downward spiral of meaninglessness, I had become enveloped in what Campbell identified as the “belly of the whale.” It wasn’t until I was able to forgive myself, which is an ongoing process, that my inner hero was evoked. Rather than be swallowed whole by this beast, I cut myself out … a metaphor of rebirth and resurrection.

The hero’s journey is a rebirth, an emergence of a higher consciousness that endows a new perspective of oneself. The emerging conscious allows the hero to be free from the tyranny of the archetypal father and his demands of manhood. It allows the hero his autonomy. With autonomy, we have the ability to hold on to each of our individual hero’s journey and place it up against the standards of the heroes and the fathers before us. In doing so, we test the boundaries of manhood and redefine the measure of a man.

Brian Carlson, MA, Assistant Director at Positive Directions located at Verdugo Mental Health in Glendale, also maintains a private practice under the supervision of Gary D. Pearle, Ph.D., in Sherman Oaks. Call 818/848-9158 or visit www.briancarlson.info.