The Avatar: Masks of Hope and Healing

Department

Leadership, Management & Business

Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

2024

Abstract

The leitmotif of the mask is communication with self (selves), emotions, feelings, and with others. The mask's archetypal expression, meaning, and power taps into the core of what it is to be human, to be embodied. The mask provides essential support to the client, at a time of extreme existential challenge, to access and express their range of feelings across a continuum, as well as the polarities of feelings of vulnerability and invincibility, of brokenness and wholeness, of fear and courage. The mask provides an archetypal canvas in the shape of a face, for critical expression that often includes the “Protector,” the “Projector,” the “Concealer,” the “Revealer,” and, most critically, a “Voice” for the client. For clients with life-threatening illness, the mask is a teacher, an embodiment of their own personal Avatar, a balm for their wounds. The mask, when used to mitigate trauma, provides a soul-supporting inter-FACE between the self and the world. This chapter will explore how hope and healing are facilitated to this end, through four case studies: one of an adult close to death with end-stage cancer in private counseling, and three teens in an inpatient pediatric hospital (two with a virulent cancer diagnosis and the other in psychiatric crisis after a suicide attempt).

Comments

Published as a chapter of Ridley, S. (2024). The expressive use of masks across cultures and healing arts. Routledge.

Front cover image for The expressive use of masks across cultures and healing arts

DOI

10.4324/978100336548-28

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