The Power of Story Telling: Michaela Kopp-Marx in Conversation with Author Patrick Roth

Abstract

This interview addresses the need to bring back into view the archetypal background in the life of the individual. German-American writer Patrick Roth explains that our seemingly trivial and thus meaningless quotidian life is imbued with mythic dimensions that we commonly overlook. Roth?s most recent book, Starlite Terrace, set in the city of movies, Los Angeles, confronts the spiritually depleted world of today with the mysteriously deep imagery of dreams. It demonstrates how numinous forces are at work in the lives of individuals, which trace a hidden pattern providing coherence and orientation. The conversation revolves around the bringing together of opposites as a central task for the modern individual. A new relationship to the feminine principle, feeling, would be helpful in this context. Patrick Roth lets us know what he has learned from depth psychology—both for his personal individuation process and for his work as a writer. He vividly explains what the objective psyche means to him. With his background as a filmmaker, it is no coincidence that classic Hollywood cinema finds its way into his storytelling, as well as images from his own archetypal dreams. And thus every book Patrick Roth works on becomes a vessel for his own consciousness raising.