The healing force of the Saga In generations the Folk tales or Sagas have had an immense importance, for the development of children. Bruno Bettelheim, the Austrian-American child psychologist, has written a wonderful book, "Sagan’s enchanted world," where he in a great way describes the children's need for stories. He is however careful to point out that they do not apply to stories in general, but only to the old folk tales, that have been told over and over again through the years, modified and adjusted to eventually become recorded.
The old folk tales have according to Bettelheim ability;
1. To capture children's attention
2. Excite their imagination
3. Enrich their emotional life
4. Sort out their internal chaos
5. Respond to their fears and expectations
6. Giving full recognition to their difficulties, while giving a hint as to the solutions to the problems they are grappling with.
He believes that the newer stories for children do not have this ability, because they are too indifferent. Here the "evil" is reduced to a minimum because the children authors today seem to believe, that the child is harmed by this kind of atrocities that are represented in the old folk tales. It has shown itself that it is precisely because of the atrocities that the old stories have such a healing effect. By the clear division between good and evil it facilitate for the child to identify with the "good" and thus reject the "bad". At the same time as the "evil" is a key hook on which the child can attach its projections.
Children often have a feeling that they are "evil", which they obviously do not want to recognize and therefore repress. The "evil" becomes Shadows in their subconscious, which they are projected onto people, things and events around the child. This is often unfortunate and has impact on the child itself. Nevertheless, it is inevitable, because The younger a child is the harder it has to host a dualistic world. It can for example still not live with the fact that Mom can be both the "good fairy" and the "bad witch". It is only later in childhood as the child can begin to take in a bit of the fact that everything has two sides, a light and a dark.
It is here the cruel witch of the Saga is so useful to the minor child. Now it has an actual figure to lay out its hatred on. She is OK to condemn, and this reduces the guilt the child otherwise would have felt, every time the shade from the unconscious, showed its ugly snout. To say nothing of the fear it creates, in which small children are forced to imagine witches in the absence of more concrete and "live" ones. Which atrocities, the evil witch or anyone else in the Saga does, they are not worse than the omnipotent and frightening fantasies which the children permanently living with in their interior.
The difference is that in the Saga and in the Dream, children may "remove" the frightening fantasy, shape it and create distance. Now the child can calmly look at its "horror-filled reality", by its knowledge that it is only a dream or a story. This is liberating for the child and reduces its internal fear and anxiety, which he/she otherwise is threatened to be overran by. The child's requirement that the story should be read again and again, allows for an intuitive processing, where the child come to terms with what it needs just then, of emotional nourishment. When the child no longer wants to hear the same story, it is a sign that they have squeezed all nutritive juices which existed in just that Saga. Now it’s time for other stories to better respond to the problems the child in the next phase of development are forced to contend with.
To be continued…. (From my book "Dragons and Demons of the Dream") Part 2
As the child's mental maturity, and with the help of dreams and fairy tales, then the child will be able to take back one projection, after the second and incorporate it in its burgeoning personality. This means that the child can accept and understand that mom can be angry sometimes, but that she may not "eat" you up, and she is still your beloved mam and that in the same person This tucked away stock in the unconscious, cannot the child with help only of the reason understand and assimilate. By contrast, as explained above stories and also the dreams can help the child to come into contact with the unconscious processes, by the deputy saga- and dream figures and their actions
The sagas addresses universal human problems, particularly those that children can identify with, and the stories speak to the child's burgeoning ”I Feeling” encouraging its development, while also easing pressure from the unconscious. The dream and the saga give the child the opportunity to unleash their imagination, create dreams, and projecting their ”part personalities” on the different elements of the saga and dream, related to the unconscious Complex. Bettelheim talking about unconscious impulses.
Whole Bettelheim book about folk tales is analyzed from a Freudian perspective, the terminology differs some from that I using in my book. With a little good will, however, many phenomena and terms are , possible to translate into Jungian psychology. Jung spoke for example not about unconscious impulses but unaware complex. The complex is the ”part personalities” that we displayed to the subconscious and life haunt to get up and be made visible. Jung similar complexes with a network of ”loaded ” images, surrounded by emotions.
To return to the stories and to stick with Jung's terminology, it is therefore our complex the folk tales raise. They are also those who indirectly via the character of the Saga may be a symbolic presentation. These deep inner complex is often overlooked in modern children's literature and Bettelheim believes that the child in this way are left in the lurch. The child's sense of loneliness and alienation, creating an anxiety that they can not dress in words. The old folk tale does the children's difficulties and anxiety of life seriously. It addresses directly; need for love, fear of humiliation, love of life and fear of death. Sagan is also the child's need for heroes, they can identify. Today, this is more necessary than before because there are a plenty of bad TV series and heroes children otherwise are forced to absorb, in the absence of other, more constructive.
Besides there is the psychological value, The saga is also a heritage that is worth passing on. For the children themselves, it is understood the entertainment aspects of the saga that attracts the most.
Yes who do not remember the fairy tales books from our childhood.. Every Saga had its character which has followed us through life... Why did they have such a great impact on us? Yes because they touched something essential
