There is also a solution to crises: this is how the Debrecen story therapy specialist sees it – Debrecen news, Debrecen news | Debrecen and Hajdú-Bihar county news
There is also a solution to crises: this is how the Debrecen story therapy specialist sees it
Author: Miklós Sénási | [email protected]
Published: 09.10.2022. 14:55 | Updated: 09.10.2022. 2:55 p.m
Debrecen – “There is no situation in life that doesn’t have a counterpart in a fairy tale,” says Györgyi Czimer, with whom we talked about creativity, therapy and the power of fairy tales. Interview.
As a teacher, Györgyi Czimer deals with high school students, so the curriculum and the treatment of fairy tales are not the focus of his lessons. But this world is still important to him, so much so Through fairy tales website, as well as poetry and story writing workshop launched.
Dehir: Nearly four hundred people signed up for this Facebook group, which shows that this area is also attractive to others. What do they do?
Györgyi Czimer: I started this “workshop” specifically with the intention of drawing attention to the topic and for relaxation, where everyone can fabricate to their liking. Those interested solve simple and/or story-related tasks, the most important of which is to have fun. they also get opportunities to share their thoughts and feelings on topics related to their lives, without any serious expectations. In the meantime, almost imperceptibly, they also get to know various poetry genres: they have written haikus, picture poems, instaverses, limericks, fairy tale endings, fairy tale variations…
It surprised me too and makes me happy
teenage students, middle-aged people and lovers of writing over sixty have also found the group, and we even have an enthusiastic seventy-year-old publisher!
A small number of creators focused on the fairy tale group of the exhibition, individual and writers of story books connected with illustrations, and closed “Advanced story writers” who have completed fairy tale writing courses, share their experiences with each other. There is a guided workshop.
Dehir: Since when are you interested in fairy tales so seriously?
Györgyi Czimer: As a mother of two children, for more than 25 years, I have sat with the fact that how much the fairy tales seem to stand out when you get stuck, in sorting out uncertainties. Later, I also turned to fairy tales with my students and students, so that together we could find the connection between the texts and our life situations, who searched for self-knowledge questions and received answers that could be put into practice. In 2000, my book The Secrets of a Woman was born from these spontaneous realizations.
My personal connection deepened when I found a way out in the fabric of fairy tales even in the most hopeless moments in my own crisis and crisis situation as an adult.
It was then that I decided to further train myself by learning from nationally recognized specialists and their methodologies, so that I could help others by feeding on my often painful but valuable experiences. And I’ve been doing this from the heart ever since. In the past decade and a half, I have led creative and developmental story therapy sessions based on collective experience, held workshops and lectures for teachers, and led story sessions in resource research camps for cancer patients who are in the process of being built. In recent years, I have worked on and tried story therapy group themes focusing on interpersonal relationships, personal experiences that can be brought into harmony with nature, and women’s themes.
In fact, I never left the world of fairy tales, but constantly deepened my relationship with them.
Dehir: I really remember a street scene from a few years ago, when the child was explaining something about one of Harry Potter to his father, and he said, son, leave it to me, I like stories about reality. Does this mean there’s a moment when it’s time to grow up?
Györgyi Czimer: According to fairy tales, there is such a moment, but it does not appear in the father’s answer I heard on the street. If we examine the world’s treasure trove of fairy tales, it turns out that most fairy tales are about growing up. As is the story of Harry Potter. This stream of fairy tales is based on the structure of magical tales, the main plot elements, and the rites of initiation into adulthood. It shows the scenario of how a young person can go on his own path, how he separates from his stepparents, the supportive background, how he distances himself from his childhood. While, of course, he acquires the skills and abilities that are necessary to be able to become independent. It all starts when Harry, like a true fairy-tale hero, leaves home…
The more complicated question is why the fairy tale became a children’s genre in the public mind, why it disappeared from the world of most adults.
One of the factors may be the need for rationality heard from his father. Fortunately, his thinking on this issue is becoming more nuanced these days.
Dehir: Do you think there is a place for fairy tales in our lives, in everyday life?
Györgyi Czimer: Anywhere and anytime, regardless of age. It’s almost a cliché, but that’s why it’s true that there isn’t a situation in life that doesn’t have a fairy-tale counterpart. There is a universal order in folktales, with a uniform, single-essence worldview background. If we fall out of harmony, which happens to children and adults perceptibly on a daily basis, these smaller and bigger crisis situations warn us that the order has been upset. The elaborate order revealed to us in fairy tales also shows the way to order. There are always ways out, you just have to find exactly the right story for your life situation. But even in a fairy tale, it is not always easy to recognize the handholds, the paths leading forward, where the world will be livable again. This requires a lot of time, immersion and awareness. But there is always a way out.
Dehir: In Debrecen, fairy tales were the topic at the National Conference of Vocational Schools at the University. At the end of September, on the day of the Hungarian folk tale, a festival was organized in the Dósa Palatín Square. Why are these programs important?
Györgyi Czimer: The fairy tale is basically a community genre, and it has been kept alive by the community for thousands of years. If people came together, stories would emerge sooner or later. If there is no community, no sustaining force, no common memory and no common intention to preserve the stories, we must not let them disappear. The fairy tale is the basic experience of all of us. It’s such an environment, it’s good to dive into it from time to time, because it’s about us, our joys and sorrows, our relationships, our life situation. Or it is good to forget about it, because it leads to distant, unreachable, never-been worlds, all its details and vibrations jolt us out of everyday life. These programs keep the traditions, rites and myths as well.
Dehir: What can we learn from fairy tales? Either the children or the adults?
Györgyi Czimer: Since the fairy tale was a genre for adults, it is not worth separating children and the impact on adults. I think we like to listen to stories because our memory exists through stories. However, fairy tales not only affect our understanding, but also trigger our imaginations and bring inner images to life in us. Through them, we can learn how to resolve tension and anxiety, how to calm down, how to become optimistic, how to bring our inner resources to life.
It is worth paying attention to those tales that we are most attracted to, because of the form in which we relate to them.
It was not by chance that Ildikó Boldizsár put it this way in one of his lectures: “the old meaning of the word fairy tale: riddle, riddle.” Because all speech was once a fairy tale. After all, everything we tell comes together as a story, and the word had power. The tale preserves knowledge, and it is also authentic, because what the listeners of the tale found to be false could not remain. A fairy tale is a world of possibilities, anything can happen in a fairy tale. But not anyway! Because there is order in fairy tales. The same order as the order of nature and soul. The fairy tale is therefore an opportunity for people to connect with themselves and the world through it. From this point of view, the fairy tale is an encounter with ourselves, being together with others, a pattern, wisdom, a map, the fairy tale is a compass.”