Document Type
Article
Abstract
This article applies a critical autoethnographic approach and a positive transformational stance to an experience of a choiceless traumatic loss. It considers how in a crisis of grief individuals may consciously choose to adopt a more agentic ‘heroic’ persona that enables them to survive the psychological disintegration of their assumptive world. Selecting a persona that serves their immediate survival needs, liberates individuals from those sociocultural expectations that dictate the conduct and positioning of the bereaved. In this new persona, the bereaved accesses a higher level of self-consciousness and autonomy, and an internal locus of control more suited to a survivor. Thus, the choices and challenges that confront the newly bereaved may ultimately lead to the preservation and transformation of the self. In this unfamiliar place the unanchored hero is tasked to accept the annihilation of the self and from the remnant begin again and break a new path resonant of a hero’s journey.
DOI
10.26736/hs.2024.01.11
Recommended Citation
Bray, Peter
(2024)
"Adopting a Heroic Persona to Manage a Traumatic Life Event: "The Face in the Mirror","
Heroism Science: Vol. 9:
Iss.
1, Article 10.
DOI: 10.26736/hs.2024.01.11
Available at:
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/heroism-science/vol9/iss1/10