Self-Help Books Have A Model in The Cry For Myth Jul 19 '01    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in Books Irene Hunt - The Lottery Rose: A Novel From $6 John Steinbeck - East Of Eden From $7 The Bottom Line Rollo May is my favorite psychologist for good reason. If there is a better example of a self help book that combines the wisdom of a psychologist and person who experienced the need for a new myth in his life, then I would be very surprised. Rollo May speaks as one of us, which is why it's so readable and helpful. Since his final book is missing from Epinions' database, I will use my review of it as an example of what one should look for in a good self-help book. * * * * It’s funny how the final book written by American existentialist psychologist Rollo May, The Cry For Myth, answers the question of why Americans deny the reality of death. In my recent reviews of Timothy Leary’s final book, Design For Dying, and my review of Jack Lemmon’s last movie, Tuesdays With Morrie, I described dying men who were unique among Americans. They craved friends and family around them to (physically) touch and listen to them, to what guidance they could give them in how to die. May would have applauded them if he’d been alive. May once fought tuberculosis as a younger man and knew what the face of death looked like. The humbling experience caused him to read about existentialism in Kierkegaard specifically and Freud’s psychoanalytic method, so that when he recovered he went on to become the first American to gain his doctorate in clinical psychology. With a Gold Medal of the American Psychological Society, he helped the whole world to understand existentialism for its positive, rather than negative, role in society. How he did this was to encourage people to face their anxiety, loneliness, choices and responsibility, even as we die, for denying the pain will isolate us from the world and deepen our pain, anxiety and depression. Morrie showed this truth to his former student Mitch in a heartbreaking scene. When Mitch spat out that it would’ve been better for him to have never renewed his relationship with Morrie and make them suffer the loss of it, Morrie gently explains the quiet joy he has received in teaching Mitch how to say good-bye. Contents May begins by discussing what myths are. They are not synonymous with lies or fairy tales. Rather they are “our self-interpretation of our inner selves in relation to the outside world.” Through understanding their presence and accepting them, society will be healed of its need for drugs, addictions and illnesses brought on by denial of our myths. The author notes that in the seventies, belief in God decreased while a belief in the devil rose alarmingly, causing the spread of fundamentalism and I would add the charismatic movement within the Roman Catholic Church. This “movement of the Holy Spirit” was really inspired by fear of evil, hell, a lonely, torturous death. Morrie and Leary didn’t need the blanket of religion to comfort them; only the opportunity to say good-bye to their loved ones in full acceptance that the insinuous American myth of rugged individualism only covers up fear and finally has been replaced in them. The book takes us from Part One: The Function of Myths where May passionately argues our need for myths in order to know ourselves and our purpose in life to Part Two: Myths in America, such as the myth of progress, individualism, the American Dream exemplified by Jay Gatsby, and the Greek Sisyphus who kept pushing the stone up a hill in rebellion to conformity, to Part Three: Myths of the Western World where Dante, Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, Briar Rose before she was corrupted into Sleeping Beauty, three very different interpretations of the Faust myth showing our need for catharsis and how belief in the devil has been the source of great literature all give me much food for thought to, finally, Part Four: Myths of Survival, which help us to appreciate our mortality and that we must die someday in order to live. Final Thoughts I have read and reviewed two other Rollo May books, namely the foundational Love and Will (where's the listing now?!), 1969, and My Quest For Beauty before this 1991 book, The Cry For Myth, and he never fails to make the journey enthralling and worthwhile. I’m left in a pleasant haziness as I muse over what he has given me to better cope with the questions I struggle with. There is, I’m afraid, simply too much psychological insight to share with you in this review, but I will follow it up with another essay on self-help books, which, I believe, May is a master of without judgment or insult upon us. He has the pulsating blood of the artist in him, eager to engage our minds with the beauty of life-changing myths through history and the wonder of influential thinkers. This book was not my first introduction to myths, but never before had so many of them been integrated so seamlessly to form a complete picture. I dearly wish everyone from high school on would know what gifts Rollo May has given me. We need to hear that art, healer of our psyches, is not trivial, and should start with the schools and flow into our struggles in living. Let me emphasize finally the distinction between fairy tales and myth, in his own words, so you who grab this book can start relishing the journey before you. Fairy tales are our myths before we become conscious of ourselves. Only fairy tales were present in the Garden of Eden before the mythic “fall” of Adam and Eve. The myth, then, adds the existential dimensions to the fairy tale. Myths challenge us to confront our destiny, our death, our love, our joy. Pp 196 Will you discover your own myth by reading the 302 pages of The Cry For Myth? It’s quite possible as I clearly recognized myself a few times. If you’re like me, though, this may only whet your appetite for more!

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