Writer and educator Reg Harris has four decades of experience using the Hero’s Journey in education, counseling and personal transformation. He has a master’s degree in existential and transpersonal psychology, focusing on the psychological dynamics of the hero’s journey process, and 33 years of teaching experience, including undergraduate and graduate programs.
He has written extensively on the Hero’s Journey and related topics. He is the co-author of the award-winning teaching guide The Hero’s Journey: A Guide to Literature and Life and author of The Hero’s Journey: The Path of Transformation. He established this website in 1997.
Harris has presented at dozens of workshops and conferences, including speaking at the 30th Anniversary celebration of Star Wars and at state language arts conferences in California and Oregon. He has also consulted on projects using the Hero’s Journey in counseling and therapy, including intervention and rehabilitation programs and re-entry programs for combat veterans.
Mr. Harris has done extensive independent research in Eastern philosophy, existentialism, hermeneutics, and phenomenology and their relationship to the Hero’s Journey pattern. He is committed to helping teachers, students, counselors and individuals bring the power of the Hero’s Journey to their work and their lives.
My Journey into the Journey
I was introduced to the Hero’s Journey pattern in 1975, and I used it to teach fantasy and mythology. Not until a decade later, however, did I start serious research into the pattern. I began by studying Joseph Campbell’s work, reading virtually everything he wrote. Campbell’s model of the hero’s journey intrigued me for two reasons. First, I was struck by its universality, that it appeared–at least in its basic form–in cultures throughout the world and history. Second, I marveled that this particular pattern resonated so deeply with all peoples in all times.
From 1985 through 1990, I continued to use the hero’s journey to teach my secondary language arts classes, developing new ways of using the journey not just to help students better understand literature and film, but to help them use the journey as a link between the stories they read and the lives they lived: a bridge between literature and life. With the journey, students could apply the themes and lessons from literature to their own experience so that they could better understand themselves and the challenges they face in their own journeys.
Then, in 1990, as I became more interested in the transformative dynamics within the journey process, I moved away from Campbell and into the psychology of the journey, that is into the process of human growth and transformation. Because Campbell had frequently referred to Jung, I began studying Jungian psychology, particularly Jung’s theory of archetypes. I also explored Gestalt therapy and Buddhist psychology, along with reading work by psychologists who had adapted elements of the journey to understanding everyday life. These included Dr. Carol Pearson, Sam Keen, Jean Houston, and Paul Rebillot. During this time I also expanded my reading of hero mythology, looking particularly for connections between myth and to the psychology of human experience.
In 1995 I teamed with Susan Thompson, another teacher at Vintage High School, to do a presentation on the hero’s journey for state convention of the California Association of Teachers of English. The tremendous interest we found at that convention motivated us to do more conferences and then to write and publish The Hero’s Journey: A Guide to Literature and Life.
Susan left Vintage shortly after we finished the book, but I continued to work independently on my hero’s journey research. In 2001, I began a master’s degree program in psychology at Sonoma State University specifically for that purpose. My post-graduate work focused on the psychological, developmental, and transformational processes represented in the hero’s journey pattern. At Sonoma, my studies expanded to include narrative therapy; humanistic and existential psychology, phenomenology, and hermeneutics (the science of interpretion).
My studies in hermeneutics and narrative therapy produced some profound insights into the hero’s journey process. I developed a deep understanding of the power that myth and story have to shape our self perception, to guide our interactions with the world and to help us heal and grow. My 153-page MA thesis, The eternal circle: A hermeneutic model of the heroic journey archetype, presented an original, psychological model of the journey process. That model is grounded in narrative therapy, hermeneutics and existential psychology.
From Theory to Practice
Since my work at Sonoma, I have gone from studying the psychological dynamics of the hero’s journey pattern to applying my theories to real-life situations outside of education. From August 2010 to April 2011, I worked with a team of psychologists, psychiatrists and neruobiologists at the University of California, San Francisco, to build an on-line class to help veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan make the difficult readjustment to civilian life. The program combined the hero’s journey with neurobiology and narrative therapy. I also helped a psychologist friend develop a six-month group therapy program called “Personal Transformation” that is helping prisoners overcome life-long problems and become more mature and productive individuals.
Workshops and Seminars
I have presented dozens of workshops and seminars on the Hero’s Journey and related topics, ranging from in-service workshops for individual schools to presentations at state conventions for the California Association of Teachers of English and the Oregon Council of Teachers of English. In June of 2007, I was a keynote speaker at the 30th Anniversary Tribute to Star Wars at Modesto Junior College. My presentation, “Use the Force, George,” explored the influence of Joseph Campbell on George Lucas and the expression of the heroic journey pattern in Star Wars IV: A New Hope, the original 1977 film.
If you are interested in a Hero’s Journey workshop for your school or organization, please contact me for details.
About | The Hero's Journey: Life's Great Adventure.
Writer and educator Reg Harris has four decades of experience using the Hero’s Journey in education, counseling and personal transformation. He has a master’s degree in existential and transpersonal psychology, focusing on the psychological dynamics of the hero’s journey process, and 33 years of teaching experience, including undergraduate and graduate programs.
He has written extensively on the Hero’s Journey and related topics. He is the co-author of the award-winning teaching guide The Hero’s Journey: A Guide to Literature and Life and author of The Hero’s Journey: The Path of Transformation. He established this website in 1997.
Harris has presented at dozens of workshops and conferences, including speaking at the 30th Anniversary celebration of Star Wars and at state language arts conferences in California and Oregon. He has also consulted on projects using the Hero’s Journey in counseling and therapy, including intervention and rehabilitation programs and re-entry programs for combat veterans.
Mr. Harris has done extensive independent research in Eastern philosophy, existentialism, hermeneutics, and phenomenology and their relationship to the Hero’s Journey pattern. He is committed to helping teachers, students, counselors and individuals bring the power of the Hero’s Journey to their work and their lives.
My Journey into the Journey
I was introduced to the Hero’s Journey pattern in 1975, and I used it to teach fantasy and mythology. Not until a decade later, however, did I start serious research into the pattern. I began by studying Joseph Campbell’s work, reading virtually everything he wrote. Campbell’s model of the hero’s journey intrigued me for two reasons. First, I was struck by its universality, that it appeared–at least in its basic form–in cultures throughout the world and history. Second, I marveled that this particular pattern resonated so deeply with all peoples in all times.
From 1985 through 1990, I continued to use the hero’s journey to teach my secondary language arts classes, developing new ways of using the journey not just to help students better understand literature and film, but to help them use the journey as a link between the stories they read and the lives they lived: a bridge between literature and life. With the journey, students could apply the themes and lessons from literature to their own experience so that they could better understand themselves and the challenges they face in their own journeys.
Then, in 1990, as I became more interested in the transformative dynamics within the journey process, I moved away from Campbell and into the psychology of the journey, that is into the process of human growth and transformation. Because Campbell had frequently referred to Jung, I began studying Jungian psychology, particularly Jung’s theory of archetypes. I also explored Gestalt therapy and Buddhist psychology, along with reading work by psychologists who had adapted elements of the journey to understanding everyday life. These included Dr. Carol Pearson, Sam Keen, Jean Houston, and Paul Rebillot. During this time I also expanded my reading of hero mythology, looking particularly for connections between myth and to the psychology of human experience.
In 1995 I teamed with Susan Thompson, another teacher at Vintage High School, to do a presentation on the hero’s journey for state convention of the California Association of Teachers of English. The tremendous interest we found at that convention motivated us to do more conferences and then to write and publish The Hero’s Journey: A Guide to Literature and Life.
Susan left Vintage shortly after we finished the book, but I continued to work independently on my hero’s journey research. In 2001, I began a master’s degree program in psychology at Sonoma State University specifically for that purpose. My post-graduate work focused on the psychological, developmental, and transformational processes represented in the hero’s journey pattern. At Sonoma, my studies expanded to include narrative therapy; humanistic and existential psychology, phenomenology, and hermeneutics (the science of interpretion).
My studies in hermeneutics and narrative therapy produced some profound insights into the hero’s journey process. I developed a deep understanding of the power that myth and story have to shape our self perception, to guide our interactions with the world and to help us heal and grow. My 153-page MA thesis, The eternal circle: A hermeneutic model of the heroic journey archetype, presented an original, psychological model of the journey process. That model is grounded in narrative therapy, hermeneutics and existential psychology.
From Theory to Practice
Since my work at Sonoma, I have gone from studying the psychological dynamics of the hero’s journey pattern to applying my theories to real-life situations outside of education. From August 2010 to April 2011, I worked with a team of psychologists, psychiatrists and neruobiologists at the University of California, San Francisco, to build an on-line class to help veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan make the difficult readjustment to civilian life. The program combined the hero’s journey with neurobiology and narrative therapy. I also helped a psychologist friend develop a six-month group therapy program called “Personal Transformation” that is helping prisoners overcome life-long problems and become more mature and productive individuals.
Workshops and Seminars
I have presented dozens of workshops and seminars on the Hero’s Journey and related topics, ranging from in-service workshops for individual schools to presentations at state conventions for the California Association of Teachers of English and the Oregon Council of Teachers of English. In June of 2007, I was a keynote speaker at the 30th Anniversary Tribute to Star Wars at Modesto Junior College. My presentation, “Use the Force, George,” explored the influence of Joseph Campbell on George Lucas and the expression of the heroic journey pattern in Star Wars IV: A New Hope, the original 1977 film.
If you are interested in a Hero’s Journey workshop for your school or organization, please contact me for details.