Metamorphoses Fairytale Therapy
The Metamorphoses Fairy Tale Therapy Method is named after Ovid's work Metamorphoses. Ovid wrote his work, which he called "Continuous Song", between 1 and 8 AD, which reviews time from the beginning of the world to his time, in a unique way. The Metamorphoses is not a world chronicle that records events in order, but shows the history of the world from a single perspective: what has changed since the beginning and how these changes took place. Since fairy tale therapy is based on the practice of mythical processing of personal life events and its most important goal is to create the necessary spiritual, intellectual and physical conditions for changes, his own creation, which is why the method got its name from this work.
PROPP AND THE METAMORPHOSES-FAIRYTALE THERAPY
The foundations of the method contribute greatly to the domestic and international success of metamorphoses fairy tale therapy: VJ Propp's morphological theory, HG Gadamer's hermeneutic spiral, and theoretical works written on initiation rites, led by Propp's folkloristic studies.
The work of Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp gave me the idea to develop the foundations of a possible fairy tale aesthetics in my PhD thesis, which I defended in 1997. In retrospect, I feel like a lucky girl because I received a manuscript for my 1986 thesis from my supervisor, Dr. Márton Istvánovits, which was only published in 2005 and was known only to the two of us. Professor Istvánovits translated the work entitled The Historical Roots of the Magic Tale, but did not intend it to be published: he kept it in his own desk drawer, had it corrected and polished. This thin, soft-spoken man was a generous and extremely intelligent mentor; he allowed me, a twenty-year-old girl, to read and annotate this invaluable manuscript in the library of the Ethnographic Research Institute in the afternoons. By the time his book was published 19 years later (well after his death), fairy tale aesthetics had become fairy tale therapy, drawing inspiration from Propp's book, among other things.
The Hungarian word “tale therapy” did not exist in the public consciousness in 2005 – similarly to “tale aesthetics” – if you typed it into a search engine, only one result came up. There was a class with this name in Bárcz, but as it turned out later, in this class the students were learning about the effect of tales on children (I received the course materials, that’s how I know.) That’s how the domain name “tale therapy” came to me, and in 2006 the website for tale therapy was also completed. The name of the method was trademarked in 2008, but university accreditation only started in 2013 with the help of the Institute of Behavioral Sciences. Exactly twenty-six years passed between my first encounter with Propp and the recognition of the method in university circles. A lot of work, tears, frustration and perseverance were already behind me by then.
The uniqueness and uniqueness of a method is determined by the foundations on which it is built. Metamorphoses-story therapy is clearly distinguished by Proppian foundations from other methods, e.g. Márta Antalfai's Treasure Seeker-story therapy, which has strong Jungian foundations. I am grateful to Vladimir Jakovlevics Propp, whom I refer to as the “father of story therapy” in my classes, I hope he is not angry with me for it. And I will cherish Propp's spirituality and the honesty and generosity embodied by Professor Istvánovits until my death. Thank you also for the spiritual support from beyond the grave!
