ABSTRACT
One may wonder what the connection is between myths and therapy. Why should anyone know about our past ancestry when so much of it is shrouded in mystery and most cannot be verified? Why should therapists using ‘talking treatments’ find the legends, fables, folk tales and fairy stories fascinating when those therapies claim to have a scientific basis? Does it not cloud our critical judgement even further and delay the process of enlightenment? But Popper (1963) suggests: ‘Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths; neither with the collection of observations, nor with the invention of experiments, but with the critical discussion of myths, and of magical techniques and practices.’ The connection may lie in the common quest in the study of myths and the investigation of the self. After all, a reconstruction of what has gone on, and how that affects what is now and what will be, is the aim of both types of enquiry. With that purpose in mind, we will examine myths and their universality in the history of human existence to see how that knowledge has been utilized in education, therapy and self-understanding.
