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Spring 2009 | Vol 12 No 3

Review

Ann Dixie

The Twenty-Four Carat Buddha: Healing trauma through fables

In The Twenty-Four Carat Buddha, psychologist Maxine Harris, co-founder of Community Connections, the largest mental health agency in Washington, D.C., demonstrates the value of fables as an effective means to self-exploration and truth-seeking. In our search to make sense of our lives, we often turn to stories because they are paradoxically personal and impersonal at the same time, thus allowing us to take stock of our values and make moral sense of our lives in a way that is safe and non-threatening.

These stories are a gift to anyone interested in raising their level of consciousness. Published by Sidran Institute Press, which specializes in resources on traumatic stress and dissociative conditions, the 24 fables can also provide a vehicle to help people with trauma find value, strength and peace.

Despite what the book’s title might suggest, the fables do not reflect a specific faith-based orientation. Rather, they explore the universal human condition. The Buddha, like other great spiritual leaders, touched people’s hearts by speaking in the language of emotion, with which anyone can identify, regardless of their religious or spiritual orientation.

Using fables as a means of self-discovery enables us to become aware of the ego’s moves because the focus on the tale holds the reader in a way that makes honest self-reflection and emotional intensity safe, thus allowing the reader to recognize and address issues the fable has called forth. These stories do not pass judgment or offer advice.

The structure of the book invites varying levels of self-discovery. The first part contains the stories themselves. The second part serves as a therapeutic guide, in which Harris provides commentary and an evocative set of questions for each fable. The reader can contemplate these questions alone or with a counsellor or group of friends or colleagues.

I have used the fables myself in clinical practice with women with trauma and substance use and mental health issues. Guided by the commentary, I selected several fables that would be meaningful to my clients who participate in a weekly journal writing group in a women’s inpatient unit. We also used self-reflection questions from the appendix. One of the fables, “Inktomi,” proved an effective tool to help clients differentiate healthy self-improvement from the powerful longing to be different that arises from a lack of self-acceptance. The exercise prompted a level of engagement and self-reflection that the women found gratifying. Some told me that the fables engaged their imagination in meaningful ways, and that by putting themselves in the position of various characters in the fables, such as Inktomi, a spider, they could connect issues emerging from the fables with issues in their own lives. One client later told me that through exploring the fable, she was able for the first time to confront how a scar from an automobile accident had restricted her life and to discuss it with her mother.

These engaging fables teach lessons about the dilemmas and choices we face in life. They are also a valuable tool that professionals working with trauma survivors may want to use to help these people embark on the journey of self-discovery in a safe, non-threatening way.

The Twenty-Four Carat Buddha and other Fables: Stories of Self-Discovery. Maxine Harris. Sidran Institute Press, Baltimore, 2003, 192 pp., $13.95US.

Ann Dixie is an occupational therapist with the Women’s Program at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.