The Hero's Journey Phase Program

The Solstice phase system is patterned after the archetypal Hero's Journey. Themes in the Hero's Journey can be found throughout literature, arts, drama, film, dance and many other expressive mediums. This journey embodies the ideas of growth, healing, skill development, identity formation, and service. Each phase of our program includes specific tasks that must be completed, and at least one primary quest--sometimes chosen by the student, and at other times chosen by the therapist/treatment team. Click on each phase to learn more about it.

Separation Phase

This is the phase that the student begins on in the program. Separation represents the first phase of the hero's journey in which the hero is separated from her everyday life and prepared for the threshold of adventure. This phase represents a separation from home, and a separation from the world. During the separation phase, the hero must remain within arms-length of staff in attempt to ensure her safety. Before the hero can begin on the threshold of adventure, she must complete several important tasks that will prepare her for the path, and she must receive "The Call" which invites her into adventure. This call is a symbolic recognition of the need to change, grow, find greater balance, and fill-in some areas that have been lacking in her life. While the hero must accept the call to move forward, the call is extended by the treatment team when she is deemed ready for the adventure.

Threshold Phase

Once called into adventure, the hero's starting point is called the Threshold. The threshold represents the point between the hero's known world and the world of adventure. Once across the threshold, the hero encounters a different set of rules, people, and way of being. Because it is unknown, it can be experienced as a place of challenge and danger. While crossing the threshold can be frightening, there are always guardians and helpers to aid in the journey. Threshold guardians act as gatekeepers at the point of threshold and ensure that individuals who are not prepared for a particular journey do not step past the threshold until they are ready. At Solstice, the individuals who play the role of guardians are the student's therapist and treatment team. Upon crossing this threshold, the very guardians that previously impeded passage shift into the role of a helper or mentor once the hero has gained passage. Her adventure has begun.

Initiation Phase

Many unknown challenges and tests await the hero in the heart of her adventure. Upon crossing over the threshold, the tests one faces take many forms and can present challenges of a physical, emotional, social and spiritual nature. Towards the beginning of the adventure, these challenges are often more simple, and their difficulty increases as the journey proceeds. Many of these challenges come in the form of tasks or quests that are very personal to the adventurer and will cause them to face some of their greatest fears and weaknesses. By facing and triumphing over these fears and weaknesses--with the help of supportive mentors along the way--the hero gains essential skills, maturity and self-confidence for her journey ahead. She then carries these personal assets into her next quest or task in life--essentially turning her weaknesses into strengths. Towards the end of this phase of the journey, the hero gets a small glimpse into the abyss and is able to recognize her greatest challenges--namely her "dragons" that she must face and overcome during the next phase of her adventure.

Transformation Phase

During this phase of the journey, the hero develops a deeper understanding of the greatest challenges she will face--as she actually enters into the abyss to slay her personal dragons. This act is the culmination of the growth process she has made--as the hero is able to incorporate all of her new skills, maturity and confidence into the final battle. These skills become absolutely essential, as the hero must enter the abyss to slay these dragons alone--no one can complete this portion of the journey for her. Additional strength and endurance comes in the form of a revelation (or realization) and resultant dramatic change in the way the hero thinks about and lives her life. This may come while in the abyss, or upon completion of the final battle and is a crucial element of the hero's journey as she lays to rest old patterns of thinking or interaction--essentially old ways of living--and prepares for her atonement and rebirth.

At times, a hero may venture into the abyss to face these dragons only to find out that she isn't quite ready for the challenge. In this case, the hero must return to smaller challenges to gain more essential skills and confidence before returning into the abyss.

Atonement Phase

As the hero conquers her dragons and emerges from the abyss victoriously, her final transformation becomes complete and she approaches rebirth. This rebirth takes place through the process of Atonement--literally allowing the hero to become "at-one" with her new self. Fear, ignorance, dependence and irresponsibility must die to make way for the birth of love, wisdom, interdependence and responsibility. As the hero becomes at-one with herself, she comes into harmony with life and the world around her. The initial problems that caused need for her separation from the world have been addressed and it is time to prepare for her return.

Return Phase

After transformation and rebirth the hero faces the final phase of her journey--her return home or transition into her next journey in life. During this time, the hero gains an awareness of her newly recognized and created gifts that have emerged in result of her journey. The true spirit of the return is one's implementation of her gifts into the society in which she lived and to which she will return. The hero recognizes her ability to create joy and value in the lives of others through using her gifts and talents in their service. The hero must come to realize that her gifts and talents may not be accepted in the same way by all people. She may find that her new levels of wisdom and responsibility may not be shared by those she returns to be with and choices may need to be made in order to move on in life, thereby leaving some elements of her old lifestyle and even old friends behind. This can be another difficult step in her journey as it could lead toward discouragement and disillusionment or it could lead toward greater transcendence.