". "All goddesses are potentially present in every woman." Myths as insights

18.09.2020 Cytomegalovirus

Why for some women the most important thing in life is family and children, while for others it is independence and success? Why are some of them extroverted, career-focused, logical and precise in detail, while others willingly become introverted stay-at-homes? The more diverse a woman is in her manifestations, - notes Dr. Bohlen, - the more goddesses appear through her. The challenge is to decide how to either increase these manifestations or fight them if you don't like them.

Goddesses in every woman book. New psychology of woman. Archetypes of Goddesses" will help you with this. Every woman recognizes herself in one or more Greek goddesses ... and not one of them will condemn herself. The book will provide you with powerful images that you can use effectively to understand and change yourself. Although this book contains information useful to psychotherapists, it is written for every reader who wants to better understand those women who are closest to the reader, loved, but still remain a mystery. Finally, this book is intended for women themselves, to whom it will help them discover the hidden goddesses within themselves.

Introduction. THE GODDESS IS IN EVERYONE OF US!

Every woman plays a leading role in her own life story. As a psychiatrist, I have listened to hundreds of personal stories and realized that each of them has a mythological dimension. Some women turn to a psychiatrist when they feel completely demoralized and “broken”, others when they realize that they have become hostages of circumstances that should be analyzed and changed.

In any case, it seems to me that women ask for help from a psychotherapist in order to

learn to be the main characters, the leading characters in the story of your life.

To do this, they need to make conscious decisions that will determine their lives. Previously, women were not even aware of the powerful influence that cultural stereotypes have on them; in a similar way, they are now usually unaware of what powerful forces lurk within themselves, forces that can determine their actions and feelings. It is to these forces, represented in the guise of ancient Greek goddesses, that I dedicate my book.

These mighty inner circuits, or

archetypes,

explain the main differences between women. Some, for example, in order to feel like an accomplished person, need monogamy, the institution of marriage and children - such women suffer, but endure if they cannot achieve this goal. For them, traditional roles are of the greatest importance. They are very different from other types of women who value their independence above all because they focus on what is important to them personally. No less peculiar is the third type - women who are attracted by the intensity of feelings and new experiences, because of which they enter into all new personal relationships or rush from one type of creativity to another. Finally, another type of woman prefers loneliness; Spirituality is of the utmost importance to them. The fact that for one woman an accomplishment may seem like complete nonsense to another - everything is determined by which archetype of which goddess prevails in her.

Moreover, in every woman coexist

several

goddesses. The more complex her character, the more likely it is that different goddesses are actively manifested in her - and what is significant for one of them is meaningless for the rest ...

Knowledge of goddess archetypes helps women understand themselves and their relationships with men and other women, with parents, lovers and children. In addition, these divine archetypes allow women to sort out their own urges (especially with compelling addictions), frustrations, and sources of contentment.

A double look at female psychology

I became a Jungian psychoanalyst around the same time I switched to feminist positions. After graduating in 1966, I studied at the C. Jung Institute in San Francisco and in 1976 received a diploma in psychoanalysis. During this period, my understanding of female psychology steadily deepened, and feminist insights were combined with Jungian psychology of archetypes.

Working on the basis of either Jungian psychoanalysis or female-oriented psychiatry, I seemed to be building a bridge between two worlds. My Jungian colleagues didn't really care what was going on in political and social life. Most of them seemed only vaguely aware of the importance of women's struggle for their rights. As for my female psychiatric feminist friends, if they considered me a Jungian psychoanalyst, they probably saw it either as my personal esoteric and mystical interest, or as just some additional specialty that, although deserving of respect, has no attitudes towards women's issues. I, torn between one and the other, over time comprehended what depths the merging of two approaches - Jungian and feminist - can reveal. They are combined into a kind of "binocular vision" of female psychology.

The Jungian approach made me realize that women are subject to powerful inner forces -

archetypes

which can be personified by the images of ancient Greek goddesses. In turn, the feminist approach helped me understand that external forces, or

stereotypes

The roles that society expects from women are to impose on them the templates of some goddesses and suppress others. As a result, I began to see that every woman is somewhere in between: her inner drives are determined by goddess archetypes, and her outer actions are cultural stereotypes.

As soon as a woman becomes aware of such influences, this knowledge becomes power. "Goddesses" are powerful invisible forces that determine behavior and feelings. The knowledge about the "goddesses" in each of us is new territories of consciousness opening before a woman. When she comprehends which “goddesses” manifest in her as the dominant internal forces, there is an understanding of herself, the power of certain instincts, an awareness of her priorities and abilities, an opportunity to find personal meaning in those decisions that other people can remain indifferent to.

Goddess schemes also affect relationships with men. They help to explain certain relationship difficulties and the mechanism of attraction that women of one type or another have for certain men. Do they prefer men who are powerful and successful? Nondescript and creative? Infantile? What kind of “goddess” invisibly pushes a woman towards a certain type of man? Such schemes determine its choice and stability of relationships.

Myths as insights

I first noticed the important connection between mythological schemes and female psychology through the book Cupid and Psyche by the Jungian psychoanalyst Erich Neumann. Neumann used mythology as a way to describe female psychology. This combination of myth and psychological commentary seemed to me an extremely powerful tool.

For example, in the ancient Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche, the first test of Psyche was the task of sorting through a huge mountain of seeds and decomposing the grains of each type into separate piles. Her first reaction to this task (as, indeed, to the three subsequent ones) was despair. I have noticed that this myth fits well with a number of my patients who had a variety of problems to solve. One was a university graduate, bogged down in her most difficult thesis and did not know how to organize the working material. The other is a depressed young mother who needed to figure out where her precious time was going, prioritize and find a way to continue her painting pursuits. Every woman, like Psyche, had to do more than she thought she could - but these obstacles arose

by her choice.

For both patients, the myth, reflecting their own situation, became a source of courage, gave insights on how to respond to the new demands of life, and gave meaning to the struggle ahead.

When a woman feels that there is a mythological dimension in any of her occupations, the understanding of this touches the deepest centers of creativity in her. Myths evoke feelings and imagination because they are connected with stories that are part of the common heritage of mankind. Ancient Greek myths - as well as all the rest fairy tales and myths, known to people for thousands of years, remain modern and individually significant, because they contain truths about experiences common to all.

Interpretations of myths can bring intellectual and intuitive understanding. Myths are like dreams that are remembered even if they are incomprehensible. This is explained by the fact that myths, like dreams, are full of symbols. According to mythologist Joseph Campbell, "a dream is a personal myth, and a myth is an impersonal dream." No wonder myths invariably seem vaguely familiar to us!

With the correct interpretation of a person’s dream, an instant insight dawns - the circumstances with which the dream is associated immediately become clear. A person intuitively comprehends their meaning and retains this understanding.

Chapter 1. GODDESSES AS INTERNAL IMAGES

One day my friend Ann saw a weak little girl in the hospital - a "bluish" child with a congenital heart defect. Taking the girl in her arms, Ann looked into her face and suddenly experienced such a strong emotional shock that a nagging pain echoed in her chest. At that moment, an invisible bond arose between her and the child. In an effort to maintain this connection, Ann began to visit the girl regularly. And although she lived then only a few months - she did not undergo open-heart surgery - their meeting made a deep impression on Ann and awakened in her soul certain images that were deeply hidden and filled with innermost feelings.

In 1966, psychiatrist and writer Anthony Stevens explored the mutual affection that arose between nannies and orphaned infants. He discovered something similar to Ann's experience, a special connection between a child and one of the nannies - a sudden mutual attraction, an unexpected outburst of love.

Stevens's observations contradict the self-interested love theory, according to which the bond between mother and child develops gradually through feeding and care. Stevens found that in at least one in three cases, the child became attached to a nanny who had not taken care of him until that point. The nanny inevitably reciprocated and began to take care of the baby who "chosen" her. A child, if "his" nanny was nearby, often simply refused the cares of another nanny.

Some mothers become attached to their baby immediately after giving birth. When they hold in their hands their precious helpless child, whom they have just given life, love and deep tenderness literally pours out of them. We say that thanks to the child in such women awakens

Mother archetype.

In other women, maternal love awakens gradually and intensifies over several months, reaching its fullness by eight or nine months of a child's life.

If the birth of a child does not awaken in a woman

mother archetype,

she realizes that she is deprived of the feelings inherent in other mothers. Her child feels the absence of a vital connection and does not stop craving it (sometimes, as happened in the Greek orphanage chosen by Stevens for research, the archetypal scheme of the mother-child relationship arises even if the woman is not the biological mother of the child). Longing for failed relationships can persist into adulthood. One 50-year-old woman in my women's group wept as she talked about the death of her mother. She wept because she felt that now that her mother was gone, this much-desired connection would never come into her life again.

Goddesses as archetypes

Most of us have heard about the Olympian gods at least in school and seen their statues or images. The Romans worshiped the same deities as the Greeks, but called them by Latin names. According to the myths, the inhabitants of Olympus were very similar to people in their behavior, emotional reactions and appearance. The images of the Olympic gods embody archetypal patterns of behavior that are present in our common collective unconscious. That is why they are close to us.

The twelve Olympians are best known: six gods - Zeus, Poseidon, Hermes, Apollo, Ares, Hephaestus, and six goddesses - Demeter, Hera, Artemis, Athena, Aphrodite and Hestia. Subsequently, the place of Hestia, the goddess hearth, in this hierarchy took the god of wine Dionysus. Thus, the balance was broken - there were more gods than goddesses. The archetypes that I describe are the six Olympian goddesses - Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Artemis, Athena, Aphrodite and, besides them, Persephone, the myth of which is inseparable from the myth of Demeter.

I have classified these goddesses as follows:

virgin goddesses, vulnerable goddesses

alchemical goddess.

Virgin Goddesses

stood out as a separate group in Ancient Greece. The other two groups are defined by me. Each of the categories under consideration is characterized by a particular perception of the world, as well as preferred roles and motivations. Goddesses differ in their affections and how they treat others. In order for a woman to love deeply, work with joy, be sexual and live creatively, all of the above goddesses must be expressed in her life, each in its own time.

The first group described here includes virgin goddesses: Artemis, Athena and Hestia.

Family tree

To better understand the essence of each of the goddesses and their relationship with other deities, we must first consider them in a mythological context. Hesiod gives us such an opportunity. "Theogony", his main work, contains information about the origin of the gods and their "family tree".

In the beginning, according to Hesiod, there was Chaos. Then came Gaia (Earth), gloomy Tartarus (immeasurable depths of the underworld) and Eros (Love).

The mighty, fruitful Gaia-Earth gave birth to a son, Uranus - the blue boundless Sky. Then she married Uranus and gave birth to the twelve Titans - the primitive natural forces that were worshiped in Greece in antiquity. According to the Hesiod genealogy of the gods, the Titans were the first supreme dynasty, the ancestors of the Olympian gods.

Uranus, the first patriarchal or paternal figure in Greek mythology, hated his children born of Gaia and did not allow them to leave her womb, thereby dooming Gaia to terrible torment. She called on the Titans to help her. But none of them, except for the youngest, Kronos (among the Romans - Saturn), did not dare to intervene. He responded to Gaia's plea for help and, armed with the sickle received from her, began to wait for Uranus in ambush.

When Uranus came to Gaia and lay down with her, Kronos took a sickle, cut off his father's genitals and threw them into the sea. After that, Kronos became the most powerful of the gods. Together with the Titans, he ruled the universe. They gave rise to many new gods. Some of them represented rivers, winds, rainbows. Others were monsters, personifying evil and danger.

History and mythology

The mythology dedicated to the Greek gods and goddesses we describe is a reflection of historical events. This is a patriarchal mythology that glorifies Zeus and heroes. It is based on the clash of people who professed faith in the maternal principle, with invaders who worshiped warlike gods and created male beginning religious cults.

Maria Jimbutas, professor at the University of California at Los Angeles and specialist in European mythology, writes about the so-called "Old Europe" - the first European civilization. Scientists estimate that the culture of Old Europe was formed at least five (and possibly twenty-five) thousand years before the patriarchal religions arose. This matriarchal, sedentary and peaceful culture was associated with land, sea and the cult of the Great Goddess. Information collected bit by bit during archaeological excavations shows that the society of Old Europe did not know property and social stratification, equality reigned in it. Old Europe was destroyed during the invasion of semi-nomadic hierarchically organized Indo-European tribes from the north and east.

The invaders were belligerent people of patriarchal morals, indifferent to art. They treated with contempt the more culturally developed indigenous population that they enslaved, professing the cult of the Great Goddess, known by many names - for example, Astarte, Ishtar, Inanna, Nut, Isis.

She was worshiped as a life-giving feminine, deeply connected with nature and fertility, responsible for both creative and destructive manifestations of the power of life. The snake, the dove, the tree and the moon are the sacred symbols of the Great Goddess. According to mythological historian Robert Graves, before the advent of patriarchal religions, the Great Goddess was believed to be immortal, unchanging, and omnipotent. She took lovers, not so that her children would have a father, but solely for her own enjoyment. There were no male gods. In the context of a religious cult, there was no such thing as paternity.

The Great Goddess was dethroned in successive waves of Indo-European invasions. Authoritative researchers date the beginning of these waves between 4500 and 2400 BC. BC e. The goddesses did not disappear completely, but entered the cults of the invaders in secondary roles.

Historical goddesses and archetypes

The Great Goddess was worshiped as the Creator and Destroyer, responsible for fertility and cataclysms. The Great Goddess still exists as an archetype in the collective unconscious. I often felt the presence of the fearsome Great Goddess in my parents. One of my patients, after giving birth, identified herself with the Great Goddess in a terrifying aspect of her. The young mother experienced psychosis shortly after the birth of her child. This woman was depressed, had hallucinations, and blamed herself for taking over the world. She paced the hospital room, miserable and pitiful.

When I approached her, she told me that she "ate greedily and destroyed the world." During her pregnancy she identified herself with the Great Goddess in her positive Creator aspect, but after giving birth she felt she had the power to destroy everything she had created and did so. Her emotional conviction was so great that she ignored the evidence that the world still existed as if nothing had happened.

This archetype is also relevant in its positive aspect. For example, the image of the Great Goddess as a life-giving force takes possession of a person who is convinced that his life depends on maintaining a connection with a certain woman who is associated with the Great Goddess. This is a fairly common mania. Sometimes we see that the loss of such a connection is so devastating that it leads a person to suicide.

The Great Goddess archetype has the power that the Great Goddess herself had at the time when she was truly worshiped. And therefore, of all the archetypes, it is this one that is able to exert the strongest influence. This archetype is capable of causing irrational fears and distorting perceptions of reality. The Greek goddesses were not as powerful as the Great Goddess. They are more specialized. Each of them had their own sphere of influence, and their powers had certain limits. In women's souls, the Greek goddesses are also not as powerful as the Great Goddess; their ability to emotionally suppress and distort the perception of reality is much weaker.

Of the seven Greek goddesses, representing the main, most general archetypal models of female behavior, the most influential are Aphrodite, Demeter and Hera. They are much more closely related to the Great Goddess than the other four goddesses. Aphrodite is a weakened version of the Great Goddess in her incarnation as the goddess of fertility. Demeter is a reduced copy of the Great Goddess as Mother. Hera is only an echo of the Great Goddess as the Lady of Heaven. However, as we shall see in the following chapters, although each of them is "less" than the Great Goddess, together they represent those forces in the soul of a woman who become irresistible when they are required to do their due.

Jin Shinoda Bolen - A GODDESS IN EVERY WOMAN

NEW PSYCHOLOGY OF WOMAN. ARCHETYPES OF GODDESSES

In every woman, several goddesses coexist. The more complex her character, the more likely it is that different goddesses are actively manifested in her - and what is significant for one of them is meaningless for the others ... Knowing the goddess archetypes helps women understand themselves and their relationships with men and other women, with parents, lovers and children. In addition, these divine archetypes allow women to sort out their own urges (especially with compelling addictions), frustrations, and sources of contentment.
In this book, I will describe the archetypes that operate in women's souls. They are personified in the images of the Greek goddesses. For example, Demeter, the goddess of motherhood, is the embodiment of the mother archetype. Other goddesses: Persephone - daughter, Hera - wife, Aphrodite - beloved, Artemis - sister and rival, Athena - strategist, Hestia - keeper of the hearth. In reality, archetypes do not have names, and images of goddesses are useful only when they correspond to female sensations and feelings.

The concept of archetypes was developed by Carl Gustav Jung. He considered them as figurative schemes (samples, models) of instinctive behavior contained in the collective unconscious. These schemas are not individual, they more or less similarly condition the responses of many people.

All myths and fairy tales are archetypal. Many images and plots of dreams are also archetypal. It is the presence of universal archetypal patterns of behavior that explains the similarity of the mythologies of various cultures.

Goddesses as archetypes

The twelve Olympians are best known: six gods - Zeus, Poseidon, Hermes, Apollo, Ares, Hephaestus, and six goddesses - Demeter, Hera, Artemis, Athena, Aphrodite and Hestia. Subsequently, the place of Hestia, the goddess of the hearth, in this hierarchy was taken by the god of wine, Dionysus. Thus, the balance was broken - there were more gods than goddesses. The archetypes that I describe are the six Olympian goddesses - Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Artemis, Athena, Aphrodite and, besides them, Persephone, the myth of which is inseparable from the myth of Demeter.

I have classified these goddesses as follows: virgin goddesses, vulnerable goddesses, and the alchemical goddess.

Virgin goddesses stood out as a separate group in ancient Greece. The other two groups are defined by me. Each of the categories under consideration is characterized by a particular perception of the world, as well as preferred roles and motivations. Goddesses differ in their affections and how they treat others. In order for a woman to love deeply, work with joy, be sexual and live creatively, all of the above goddesses must be expressed in her life, each in its own time.

The first group described here includes virgin goddesses: Artemis, Athena and Hestia.

Artemis (among the Romans - Diana) - the goddess of the hunt and the moon. The realm of Artemis is a wilderness. She is an unmissable marksman and patroness of wild animals.

Pallas Athena (Minevra)

Athena (among the Romans - Minerva) is the goddess of wisdom and crafts, the patroness of the city named after her. She also patronizes numerous heroes. Athena was usually depicted wearing armor, as she was also known as an excellent military strategist.

Hestia, the goddess of the hearth (among the Romans - Vesta), is the least known of all the Olympians. The symbol of this goddess was the fire that burned in the hearths of houses and in temples.

Virgin goddesses are the embodiment of female independence. Unlike other celestials, they are not prone to love. emotional attachments do not distract them from what they consider important. They don't suffer from unrequited love. As archetypes, they are an expression of women's need for independence and focus on goals that are meaningful to them. Artemis and Athena represent purposefulness and logical thinking and therefore their archetype is achievement oriented. Hestia is the archetype of introversion, attention directed to the inner depths, to the spiritual center of the female personality. These three archetypes expand our understanding of such feminine qualities as competence and self-sufficiency. They are inherent in women who actively strive for their own goals.

The second group is made up of vulnerable goddesses - Hera, Demeter and Persephone. Hera (among the Romans - Juno) - the goddess of marriage. She is the wife of Zeus, the supreme god of Olympus. Demeter (among the Romans - Ceres) - the goddess of fertility and agriculture. In myths, Demeter is given special importance in the role of mother. Persephone (among the Romans - Proserpina) is the daughter of Demeter. The Greeks also called her Kore - "girl".

These three goddesses represent the traditional roles of wife, mother and daughter. As archetypes, they are relationship oriented, providing experiences of wholeness and well-being, in other words, meaningful connection. They express women's need for strong bonds and affection. These goddesses are attuned to others and therefore vulnerable. They are suffering. They were raped, kidnapped, suppressed and humiliated by male gods. When their attachments were destroyed and they felt offended in their feelings, they showed symptoms similar to those of ordinary people's mental disorders. And each of them eventually overcomes their suffering. Their stories enable women to understand the nature of their own psycho-emotional reactions to losses and find the strength to cope with mental pain.

Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty (among the Romans - Venus) is the most beautiful and irresistible alchemical goddess. She is the only one who falls under the third category. She had many novels and, as a result, many offspring. Aphrodite is the embodiment of erotic attraction, voluptuousness, sexuality and the desire for a new life. She enters into love affairs of her own choosing and never finds herself in the role of a victim. Thus, she combines the independence of virgin goddesses and the intimacy in relationships inherent in vulnerable goddesses. Her mind is both focused and receptive. Aphrodite allows relationships that equally affect her and the subject of her hobbies. The Aphrodite archetype encourages women to look for intensity rather than permanence in relationships, to appreciate the creative process, and to be open to change and renewal.

Family tree

In the beginning, according to Hesiod, there was Chaos. Then came Gaia (Earth), gloomy Tartarus (immeasurable depths of the underworld) and Eros (Love).

Kronos was married to his sister Rhea, the Titanide. From their union was born the first generation of the Olympic gods - Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus.

And again, the patriarchal progenitor - this time Kronos himself - tried to destroy his children. Gaia foretold that he was destined to be defeated by his own son. He decided not to let this happen and swallowed all his children immediately after their birth, without even finding out if it was a boy or a girl. So he devoured three daughters and two sons.

Having once again become pregnant, Rhea, mourning the fate of her own children, turned to Gaia and Uranus with a request to help her save her last child and punish Kronos. Her parents advised her to retire to the island of Crete and, when the time comes for childbirth, to deceive Kronos by giving him a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes. In his haste, Kronos swallowed the stone, thinking it was a baby.

The rescued child was named Zeus. Later, he overthrew his father and began to rule over all gods and mortals. Growing up in secret from Kronos, he subsequently tricked him into regurgitating his brothers and sisters back, and together with them began a long struggle for power over the world, ending with the defeat of the Titans and their imprisonment in the dark abysses of Tartarus.

After the victory over the titans, the three god brothers - Zeus, Poseidon and Hades - divided the universe among themselves. Zeus took the sky, Poseidon the sea, Hades the underworld. Although the earth and Olympus were supposed to be common, nevertheless Zeus extended his power to them. Three sisters - Hestia, Demeter and Hera - according to patriarchal Greek beliefs, did not have substantial rights.

Thanks to his love affairs, Zeus became the father of the next generation of gods: Artemis and Apollo (the sun god) - the children of Zeus and Leto, Athena - the daughter of Zeus and Metis, Persephone - the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, Hermes (messenger of the gods) - the son of Zeus and Maya, Ares (god of war) and Hephaestus (god of fire) are the sons of the legal wife of Zeus, Hera. There are two versions of the origin of Aphrodite: according to one of them, she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione, in the other case, it is argued that she preceded Zeus. Through a love affair with a mortal woman, Semele, Zeus also fathered Dionysus.

To remind the reader who is who in Greek mythology, the book ends with brief biographical notes on the gods and goddesses, arranged in alphabetical order.

History and mythology

The Great Goddess was dethroned in successive waves of Indo-European invasions. Authoritative researchers date the beginning of these waves between 4500 and 2400 BC. BC. The goddesses did not disappear completely, but entered the cults of the invaders in secondary roles.

The invaders imposed their patriarchal culture and their militant religious cult on the conquered population. The Great Goddess in her various incarnations began to play the subordinate role of the wife of the gods worshiped by the conquerors. The powers that originally belonged to the female deity were alienated and transferred to the male deity. For the first time, the theme of rape appeared in myths; myths arose in which male heroes killed snakes - a symbol of the Great Goddess. The attributes of the Great Goddess were divided among many goddesses. Mythologist Jane Harrison notes that the Great Goddess, as in a broken mirror, was reflected in many lesser goddesses: Hera received the rite of sacred marriage, Demeter - mysteries, Athena - a snake, Aphrodite - a dove, Artemis - the function of the mistress of the wild.

Goddess Aphrodite

According to Merlin Stone, author of When God Was a Woman, the final overthrow of the Great Goddess occurred later, with the advent of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The male deity took the dominant position. The female goddesses gradually receded into the background; women in society followed suit. Stone notes: "We are surprised to discover to what extent the suppression of women's rituals was in fact the suppression of women's rights."

Historical goddesses and archetypes

Women who are affected by any of these three goddesses must learn to resist, as blindly following the commands of Aphrodite, Demeter, or Hera can adversely affect their lives. Like the goddesses of ancient Greece themselves, their archetypes do not serve the interests and relationships of mortal women. Archetypes exist outside of time, they do not care about a woman's life or her needs.

Three of the remaining four archetypes - Artemis, Athena and Persephone - are daughter goddesses. They are removed from the Great Goddess for another generation. Accordingly, as archetypes, they do not have the same absorbing power as Aphrodite, Demeter and Hera, and affect mainly character traits.

Hestia, the eldest, wisest, and most revered goddess of all, eschewed power entirely. She represents the spiritual component of life, which should be honored by every woman.

Greek goddesses and modern women

Greek goddesses are female images that have lived in the human imagination for more than three millennia. They embody female aspirations, they embody behavioral patterns that historically were not allowed to women.

Greek goddesses are beautiful and powerful. They follow exclusively their own motives, not knowing the dictates of external circumstances. I argue in this book that, as archetypes, they are able to determine both the quality and direction of a woman's life.

These goddesses are different from each other. Each of them has its positive and its potential negative properties. Mythology shows what is important for them, and in a metaphorical form tells us about the possibilities of women like them.

I also came to think that the Greek goddesses of Olympus, each of whom is unique, and some of them are even hostile to each other, are a metaphor for the internal diversity and internal conflicts of a woman, thereby manifesting her complexity and versatility. All goddesses are potentially present in every woman. When several goddesses fight for dominance over a woman, she needs to decide for herself which aspects of her essence and at what time will be dominant, otherwise she will rush from one extreme to another.

The Greek goddesses, like us, lived in a patriarchal society. The male gods ruled over the earth, sky, ocean, and underworld. Each goddess adapted to this state of affairs in her own way - some by separating from men, some by joining men, some by withdrawing into themselves. The goddesses who valued patriarchal relationships were vulnerable and relatively weak compared to the male gods who dominated the community and could deny them their desires. Thus, the Greek goddesses embody the life models of a woman in a patriarchal culture.

HEROINE IN EVERY WOMAN

Every woman has a potential heroine. She represents a female leader in her life story, on a journey that begins at her birth and continues throughout her life. As she walks her unique path, she will undoubtedly encounter suffering; feel lonely, vulnerable, indecisive and face limitations. She can also find meaning in her life, develop character, experience love and reverence, and learn wisdom.

It is formed by its decisions through the ability to believe and love, the willingness to learn from experience and make commitments. If she evaluates what can be done when she encounters difficulties, decides what she will do, and behaves according to her values and feelings, then she is acting as the main character of her personal myth.

Although life is full of circumstances beyond our control, there are always moments of decision, nodal points that determine further events or change human character. As the heroine of her heroic journey, a woman must begin with the attitude (even if at first "as if") that her choice matters. In the process of life, a woman becomes a person who makes decisions, a heroine who shapes her future self. It either develops or degrades by what it does or does not do and by the positions it occupies.

I know that my patients were shaped by events not only external, but also internal. Their feelings, their inner and outer reactions determined their path and who they became, to a much greater extent than the degree of misfortune and adversity they faced. For example, I have met people who lived through childhoods full of deprivation, cruelty, callousness, beatings, or sexual abuse. However, they did not (as might be expected) become like the adults who mistreated them. Despite all the bad things that they experienced, they felt compassion for others - both then and now. The traumatic experience left its mark, they were not unscathed, but despite this, the ability to trust, love and hope survived. When I guessed why such events happened, I began to understand the difference between a heroine and a victim.

As children, each of these people saw themselves as the protagonist of a terrible drama. Everyone had an inner myth, a fictional life, imaginary comrades. The daughter, beaten and humiliated by a rude father and unprotected by a depressed mother, recalled telling herself as a child that she was not part of this uneducated, uncouth family, that in reality she was a princess being tested by these ordeals. Another girl, beaten and sexually harassed (and who, as an adult, completely disproved the notion that those who were beaten in childhood later beat their own children), fled to an imaginary bright life completely different from reality. The third represented herself as a warrior. These children thought about the future and planned how they could leave their family when they were old enough. Meanwhile, they themselves chose how they would react. One said, "I wouldn't let anyone see me cry." (She ran into the foothills and wept when none of her offenders could see her.) Another said, "I think my mind left my body. It was like I was in a different place every time he touched me."

These girls were heroines and decision makers. They retained their dignity in spite of their mistreatment. They assessed the situation, decided how they would act in the present, and made plans for the future.

As heroines, they were not strong or powerful demigods like Achilles or Hercules, the heroes of Greek myths who were stronger and more secure than mere mortals. These children, as precocious human heroines, are more like Hansel and Gretel, who had to use their minds when they were abandoned in the woods or when the witch was fattening Hansel for a roast.

AT real stories women's lives, as in heroine myths, the key element is the emotional or other bonds that a woman makes along the way. A female heroine is one who loves or learns to love. She either travels with someone else, or seeks such an alliance in her search.

Path

On every road there are decisive forks that require decisions to be made. Which way to choose? Which direction to follow? To continue a line of conduct consistent with one principle, or to follow a completely different one? Be honest or lie? Go to college or go to work? Have a baby or have an abortion? End relationships or leave? Get married or say "no" to this particular man? Contact immediately for medical care upon detection of a breast tumor or wait? Just quit school or work and look for something else? Have a love affair and risk marriage? Give in or persevere to achieve something? What choice to make? Which way to choose? What's the price?

I recall one vivid college economics lesson that would come in handy years later in psychiatry: the real price of anything is what you give up to get what you want. This is not the accepted way. Taking responsibility for making a choice is a crucial and not always easy moment. A woman's ability to choose is what defines her as a heroine.

In contrast, the non-heroine woman follows someone else's choice. She yields sluggishly rather than actively decides. The result is often a willingness to be the victim, saying (after the fact) "I really didn't mean to do this. It was your idea" or "It's all your fault we're in trouble" or "You're the one who got us here" , or "It's your fault that I'm unhappy." And she may also feel tormented and deceived and make accusations: “We always do what you want!”, Not realizing that she herself never insisted on her own or did not express her opinion at all. Starting with the simplest question, "What do you want to do tonight?" to which she invariably replies, "Whatever you want," her habit of giving in can grow until the control of her life simply falls into the wrong hands.

There is also another non-heroic model of behavior, when a woman lives, as if stomping on a crossroads, not having clarity in her feelings, feeling uncomfortable in the role of the one who decides, or not trying to make a choice because of her unwillingness to give up other options. She is often a bright, talented, attractive woman who treats life like a game, refusing close relationships that might become too serious for her, or careers that require too much time or effort. Her stop at not deciding in reality represents, of course, the choice of non-action. She can spend ten years waiting at a crossroads until she realizes that life is passing her by.

Therefore, women need to become heroines-choicemakers, instead of being passive beings, victims-sufferers, pawns moved by other people or circumstances. Becoming a heroine is an inspiring new opportunity for women who have been guided from within by archetypes of vulnerable goddesses. Self-assertion presents a heroic task for women who are malleable like Persephone, who put their men first like Hera, who care about someone else's needs like Demeter. To do this, among other things, means for them to go against their upbringing.

In addition, the need to become a heroine-who-decides comes as a shock to many women who mistakenly thought they already were. Being women of the type of virgin goddesses, they can be psychologically "covered with armor", like Athena, independent of the opinions of men, like Artemis, self-sufficient and lonely, like Hestia. Their heroic task is to venture into intimacy or become emotionally vulnerable. For them, the courageous choice is to trust someone else, need someone else, take responsibility for someone else. It can be easy for such women to make risky business decisions or speak in public. Courage from them requires marriage or motherhood.

The heroine-who-decides must repeat Psyche's first task of "sorting grains" whenever she finds herself at a crossroads and must decide what to do now. She must pause to sort out her priorities, motives, and potentialities in a given situation. She needs to consider what choices exist, what the emotional cost might be, where decisions will take her, what intuitively matters most to her. Based on who she is and what she knows, she must make a decision, choosing a path.

Here I touch again on a theme that I developed in my first book, The Tao of Psychology: the need to choose the "path with the heart." I feel that everyone should weigh everything, and then act, scrutinize every life choice, rationally considering, but then justify their decision by whether their heart agrees with this choice. No other person can tell you if your heart is being touched, and logic cannot provide an answer.

Often, when a woman is faced with such “either/or” choices that have a significant impact on her later life, someone else puts pressure on her: “Get married!”, “Have a baby!”, “Buy a house!”, "Change your job!", "Stop!", "Move!", "Say yes!", "Say no!". Very often a woman is forced to subordinate her mind and her heart to oppressive ideas created by someone's intolerance. To be the one who decides, a woman needs to insist on making her own decisions at the right time for her, realizing that this is her life and she will live with the consequences of these decisions.

In order to develop clarity and understanding, she also needs to resist the inner urge to make rash decisions. The initial stage of life may be dominated by Artemis or Aphrodite, Hera or Demeter with their characteristic force or intensity of response. They may try to displace the feeling of Hestia, the introspection of Persephone, the cold-blooded thinking of Athena, but the presence of these goddesses provides a fuller picture and allows a woman to make decisions that take into account all aspects of her personality.

Travel

When a woman embarks on a heroic journey, she faces challenges, obstacles, and dangers. Her answers and actions will change her. She will discover what is important to her and whether she has the courage to act according to her own ideas. Her character and capacity for compassion will be tested. Along the way, she encounters the dark, vague sides of her personality - sometimes at the same time that she is convinced of her strength and her self-confidence is growing, or when she is overcome by fear. She will probably survive some losses and experience the bitterness of defeat. The heroine's journey is a journey of self-discovery and development, in which the various aspects of a woman's personality are combined into a single entity that retains all its complexity.

Resurrection of the Serpent's Power

Each heroine must acquire the power of the snake. To understand the essence of this task, we need to return to the goddesses and women's dreams.

Many statues of Hera have snakes wrapped around her mantle. Athena was depicted with snakes wrapped around her shield. Serpents were symbols of the pre-Greek Great Goddess of Old Europe and serve as a symbolic trace of the power that the female deity once possessed. In one of the earliest images (Crete, 2000-1800 BC), a bare-breasted female goddess holds a snake in her outstretched arms.

The snake often appears in women's dreams as a mysterious, frightening symbol, to which the dreamer, having felt the possibility of asserting her own strength in life, carefully approaches. Here is a description of a dream of a thirty-year-old married woman: “I am walking along a path; when I looked ahead, I saw that I had to pass under a huge tree. A huge snake peacefully coils around the lower branch. I know that it is not poisonous and nothing threatens - indeed, she is beautiful, but I hesitate. Many dreams like this one, where the dreamer is rather reverent or aware of the power of the snake than afraid of danger, are remembered: "A snake wrapping around my table ...", "I see a snake curled up on a balcony ...", "In three snakes in the room..."

Whenever women begin to assert their power, make important decisions and realize their power, as a rule, dreams with snakes appear. Often the dreamer feels the gender of the snake, and this helps to clarify the kind of power symbolized by the snake.

If these dreams coincide with the dreamer's actual life, she has the opportunity, from a position of power or independence, to cope with such questions that arose after choosing a new role: "Can I be effective?", "How will this role change me? "," Will people like me if I'm decisive and strict?", "Does this behavior threaten my close relationships?". The dreams of women who have never experienced their own power before, most likely indicate that such women should approach the Force carefully, as if approaching an unfamiliar snake.

I think of women gaining a sense of their own power and authority as "claiming the power of the serpent," the power lost by female deities and mortal women at the moment when patriarchal religions stripped goddesses of power and influence, presented the snake as a symbol of evil, threw away her from Eden and made women inferior. Then I imagine the image, the personification of a new woman - strong, beautiful and able to raise and educate children. This image is a terracotta sculpture of a beautiful woman or goddess rising from the ground and holding a sheaf of wheat, flowers and a snake in her hands.

Bear Power Resistance

Unlike the male hero, the doer heroine can be threatened by the irresistible pull of the instinct of motherhood. A woman who is unable to resist Aphrodite and/or Demeter may become pregnant at the wrong time or under adverse circumstances. If this happens, she may deviate from the path she has chosen - she is captured by instinct.

I knew a young woman, a graduate student, who forgot all her goals when she felt caught in the urge to get pregnant. She was married and about to get her PhD when she was overcome by the desire to have a child. In those days, she had a dream: a huge bear held her hand in her mouth. She unsuccessfully tried to free herself and called for help from some men, but they were of no use. In this dream, she wandered until she came to a sculpture of a bear with cubs, which reminded her of the sculpture at the San Francisco Medical Center. When she placed her hand on the foot of the sculpture, the she-bear released her.

As she pondered this dream, she felt that the bear symbolized her motherly instinct. Real she-bears are great mothers, they selflessly feed their vulnerable offspring and fiercely protect them. Then, when the time comes for the grown-up cubs to be independent, the mother bear firmly insists that the resisting cubs leave her, go into the world and take care of themselves. This symbol of motherhood firmly held the dreamer until she touched the image of Mother Bear.

The dreamer received the dream's message. If she can promise to maintain her desire to have a child by the time she completes her dissertation (only two years from now), her obsessive desire to get pregnant may subside. Indeed, after she and her husband decided to have a child and she made an internal commitment to get pregnant shortly after completing her dissertation, the obsessive state disappeared. She was able to focus on her studies again. As she made contact with the image, instinct lost its grip. She knew that in order to make a career and at the same time create a real family, you need to resist the power of the bear until she was awarded a doctorate.

Archetypes exist outside of time, not interested in the realities of a woman's life or her needs. When goddesses awaken in a woman, like a heroine, she must say in response to their demands: "yes", or "no", or "not now". If she hesitates to make a conscious choice, instinct or archetypal schema will take over. A woman, captured by the instinct of motherhood, must resist the power of the "bear" and at the same time honor her.

Banishing death and the forces of destruction

Each heroine of myths invariably comes out on her way against something destructive or dangerous, threatening her with destruction. It is also a common theme in women's dreams.

A female lawyer dreamed that she was leaving the church of her childhood and that two wild black dogs attacked her. They jumped on her, trying to bite her neck: "It was perceived as if they were going to bite through the carotid artery." When she raised her hand to deflect the attack, she awoke from her nightmare.

Ever since she started working at the agency, she has been increasingly embittered by her treatment. Men usually assumed that she was just a secretary. Even when those around her were aware of her real role, she often felt insignificant and thought that she was not taken seriously. She, in turn, became critical and hostile towards male colleagues.

At first it seemed to her that the dream was an exaggerated reflection of the perception of herself as constantly "attacked". Then she began to wonder if she herself had anything like those wild dogs. She analyzed what was happening to her at work and was amazed and frightened by the sudden realization that came to her: "Why, I'm turning into an evil bitch!" She remembered the feeling of grace that she experienced in the church in the happy times of her childhood, and realized that she was now completely different. This dream was an inspiration. The dreamer's personality was threatened by a real danger of self-destruction by her own hostility, which she directed at others. She became cynical and angry. In reality, as in the dream, it was she who was in danger, not the people on whom she directed her bitterness.

Similarly, the negative or shadow aspects of the goddess can be destructive. Jealousy, vindictiveness, or Hera's rage can become poisonous. A woman possessed by these feelings and aware of her condition oscillates between vindictiveness and horror at her feelings and actions. When in it the heroine fights with the goddess, dreams may appear in which she is attacked by snakes (indicating that the power represented by them is dangerous for the dreamer herself). In one such dream, a poisonous snake darted towards the dreamer's heart; in another, the snake plunged its venomous teeth into the woman's leg, preventing her from walking. In real life, both women were trying to survive infidelity and faced the danger of succumbing to venomous, spiteful feelings (like the wild dog dream, this dream had two levels of meaning: it was a metaphor for what was happening to her and in her).

The danger to the dreamer, coming in human form in the form of attacking or threatening men or women, usually comes from hostile criticism or its destructive side (while animals seem to represent feelings or instincts). For example, a woman who returned to college when her children were still in elementary school dreamed that a "huge matron jailer" was blocking her path. The scene appears to represent both her mother's negative judgment of her and the maternal role with which she identified; the dream expressed the view that this identification is like being imprisoned.

Hostile judgments of internal subpersonalities can be truly destructive, for example, "You can't do this because you are bad (ugly, inept, unintelligent, untalented)". In essence, they say, "You have no right to strive for more," and present messages that can upset a woman and undermine her good intentions or self-confidence. These aggressive critics usually appear in dreams as men threatening her. Internal critical attitude often corresponds to the opposition or hostility that a woman faces in the world around her; critics parrot the unkind messages of her family or culture.

From a psychological point of view, every enemy or demon that the heroine encounters in a dream or in a myth represents something destructive, gross, undeveloped, distorted or evil in the human soul, seeking to take over and destroy it. Women who dreamed of wild dogs or poisonous snakes realized that when they struggled with dangerous or hostile actions directed at them by other people, they were equally threatened by what was going on inside them. An enemy or demon can be a negative part of their own soul, a shadow element that threatens to destroy what represents the compassionate and competent part in it. An enemy or demon can also be in the soul of other people who want to harm, subdue, humiliate or control it. Or, as often happens, she is threatened by both.

Experiencing loss and grief

Loss and grief is another theme in women's lives and heroine myths. Somewhere along the way someone dies or has to be left behind. The loss of close relationships plays a significant role in women's lives, as most of them define themselves through their close relationships, and not through their own achievements. When someone dies, leaves them, leaves or becomes a stranger, then this is a double loss - both close relationships in themselves, and close relationships as a source of self-definition.

Many women who have been dependent parties in close relationships find themselves on the path of the heroine only after suffering the pain of loss. The pregnant Psyche, for example, was abandoned by her husband Eros. In her search for reunion, she completed the tasks that ensured her development. Divorced and widowed women of any age can make the decision to become independent for the first time in their lives. For example, the death of a beloved ally prompted Atalanta to return to her father's realm, where the famous race took place. This is in line with the intention of those women who enter their careers after the loss of close relationships.

Metaphorically, psychological death occurs whenever we have to let something or someone go and cannot help but mourn the loss. It may be the death of some aspect of ourselves, an old role, former position, beauty or other passing qualities of youth, a dream that is no more. It can also be a close relationship that ended in death or separation. Will the heroine awaken in the woman or will she be devastated by the loss? Will she be able to grieve and move on? Or will he succumb, harden, sink into depression, stop his journey at this point? If she goes further, she will choose the path of the heroine.

Passing through a dark and narrow place

Most heroic journeys involve passing through a dark place - mountain caves, the underworld, labyrinths - and eventually coming out into the light. They may also include crossing a deserted desert into a flourishing land. This part of the journey is analogous to experiencing depression. In myths, as in life, the heroine needs to keep moving, acting, doing what needs to be done, staying in touch with friends or coping on her own without stopping or giving up (even when she feels lost), keeping hope in the dark.

Gloom is those dark repressed feelings (anger, despair, indignation, resentment, condemnation, revenge, fear, pain due to betrayal, guilt) that people must overcome if they want to get out of depression. This is a dark night of loneliness, when, in the absence of light and love, life seems like a meaningless cosmic joke. Grief and forgiveness usually represent a way out. Now life energy and light can return.

Death and rebirth in myths and dreams is a metaphor for loss, depression and recovery. In retrospect, many of these dark periods are seen as rites of passage, times of suffering and trials, through which a woman learns something of value and develops. Or, like Persephone in the underworld, she can be a temporary prisoner, then to become a guide for others.

transcendent challenge

In heroic myths, a heroine who sets off on a journey, overcomes unthinkable dangers and defeats dragons and darkness, at some point gets stuck, unable to move forward or backward. Wherever she looks, incredible obstacles await her everywhere. To open her way, she has to solve a certain problem. What to do if her knowledge is clearly not enough for this, or if her uncertainty in her own choice is so strong that a solution seems impossible?

When she finds herself in an ambiguous situation, where every choice seems potentially fatal or, at best, hopeless, her first test is to remain herself. In crisis situations, a woman is tempted to become a victim instead of being a heroine. If she remains true to the heroine in herself, it is clear to her that she is in a bad place and can fail, but she continues to believe that one day everything can change. If she turns into a victim, she begins to blame other people for her troubles or curse fate, drink or take drugs, attack herself with degrading criticism. In this case, she finally submits to circumstances or even thinks about suicide. Having resigned from the role of the heroine, the woman becomes inactive or hysterical, panic seizes her, or she acts so impulsively and irrationally that she ultimately suffers final defeat.

In myths and in life, when a heroine is in a difficult situation, all she can do is remain herself and not change her principles and obligations until someone or something unexpectedly comes to her aid. To remain in a situation, waiting for the answer to come, is to enter into a state that Jung called "transcendental function." By this, he meant something emerging from the unconscious to solve a problem or point the way to the heroine (ego) who needs the help of what is outside of her (or him).

For example, in the myth of Eros and Psyche, Aphrodite gave Psyche four tasks, each of which required something from her that she had no idea about. Each time, at first, Psyche felt overwhelmed, but then help or advice came - from ants, a green reed, an eagle, a tower. In the same way, Hippomenes, in love with Atalanta, had to race with her in order to win her hand and heart. But he knew that he would not be able to run the distance fast enough to win, and therefore he would lose a life. On the eve of the competition, he prayed for help to Aphrodite, who, as a result, helped him win. In a classic western, a brave but small force suddenly hears a horn and realizes that the cavalry is rushing to the rescue.

All of these are archetypal situations. A woman as a heroine must understand that help is possible. When she is in a state of internal crisis and does not know what to do, she should not retreat or act out of fear. To wait for a new understanding or change in circumstances, to meditate or pray - all this means to lure out of the unconscious a solution that will help to transcend the stalemate.

A woman who had a dream with a bear experienced a deep personality crisis, feeling an urgent need to have a child in the midst of working on her doctoral dissertation. The instinct of motherhood, which seized her with irresistible force, had previously been suppressed and now demanded to give it its due. Before having a dream, she was in the thrall of an "either-or" situation from which there was no satisfactory outcome. In order to change the situation, she had to feel the solution, not logically construct it. Only after the dream had affected her on an archetypal level and she fully realized that she should hold on to her desire to have a child, was she able to safely delay conception. This dream was the answer of the unconscious, which came to the rescue in solving her dilemma. The conflict disappeared when the symbolic experience gave her a profound and intuitively felt sudden understanding.

The transcendental function can also be expressed through the synchrony of events - in other words, there are very significant coincidences between the internal psychological situation and current events. When faced with such things, they are perceived as a miracle. For example, a few years ago a patient of mine started a self-help program for women. If she had obtained a specific amount of money by a certain date, the fund would provide her with the missing funds, guaranteeing the continuation of the program. When this deadline approached, she still did not have the required amount. But she knew that her project was necessary, and did not back down. Soon a check arrived in the mail for exactly the amount she needed. She was unexpectedly returned, and with interest, a debt two years ago, which she had long since discarded.

Of course, in most cases of predicament, we do not get such clear answers. More often we perceive certain symbols that help to clearly understand the situation and then resolve it.

For example, my previous publisher insisted that this book be revised by another person, who had to significantly reduce it and put the ideas presented here in a more popular form. The message "What you are doing is not good enough" that I received for two years hit me hard psychologically and I was tired. Part of me (like a pliable Persephone) was willing to let someone literally rewrite the book, as long as it was published. And I, wishful thinking, began to think that perhaps it would be for the best. A week before the book was to be given to another writer, I received word.

An author from England, whose book had been rewritten by the same writer under similar circumstances, visited my friend to tell him of his experiences. He said what I never put into words, but nevertheless intuitively knew: "They took the soul out of my book." When I heard these words, I felt that a revelation had been sent down to me. The same thing should have happened to my book. This gave me the freedom to act decisively. I hired an editor myself and completed the book myself.

This message was loud and clear. Further events developed quite favorably. Grateful for the lesson, I remembered an ancient Chinese saying expressing belief in synchrony and transcendental function: "When the student is ready, the teacher will come."

Creative insight is also transcendent. In the creative process, when a solution exists but is not yet known, the artist-inventor-scientist believes there is an answer and stays in his situation until the solution arrives. A creative person is often in a state of increasing tension.

Everything that could be done has already been done. The person then relies on an incubation period after which something new is inevitable. A classic example is the chemist Friedrich August Kekule, who discovered the structure of the benzene molecule. He puzzled over the task, but could not cope with it until he dreamed of a snake holding its tail in its mouth. Intuitively, he realized that this is the answer: carbon atoms can connect with each other in closed chains. Then he did research and proved that his hypothesis was correct.

From victim to heroine

As I was contemplating the heroine's journey, I learned and was very impressed with how Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) turns alcoholics and alcoholics from victims into heroines and heroes. AA activates the transcendental function and, in essence, gives lessons on how to become the maker of one's own choice.

The alcoholic begins by recognizing the fact that she is in a hopeless situation: it is unthinkable for her to continue drinking - and at the same time she cannot stop. At this point of hopelessness, she joins a community of people helping each other on their shared journey. She is taught how to call on a power far greater than herself to get out of the crisis.

AA emphasizes the need to accept what cannot be changed, change what is possible, and be able to distinguish one from the other. According to A.A. rules, a person in danger emotional state who cannot clearly see his future life path, plans its actions no further than one step. Gradually, one step a day, the alcoholic becomes the mistress of her own destiny. She gains the ability to make choices and discovers that she can be competent and, in her empathy, help others.

The female heroine embarks on a journey in search of her own individuality. Along the way, she finds, loses, and rediscovers what makes sense to her, until she adheres to the values she has acquired in life in any circumstances that challenge her. She may again and again face that which is stronger than herself, until in the end the danger of losing her individuality is overcome.

I have a painting in my office of the inside of a nautilus shell that I painted many years ago. It emphasizes the spiral structure of the shell. Thus, the picture serves as a reminder that the path we choose is also often in the form of a spiral. Our development is cyclical - through behavioral patterns that again and again bring us back to our Nemesis - to what we must certainly meet and overcome.

Often it is the negative aspect of the goddess that can overwhelm us: Demeter or Persephone's susceptibility to depression, Hera's jealousy and suspicion, Aphrodite's promiscuous love affairs, Athena's lack of scrupulousness, Artemis's ruthlessness. Life gives us multiple opportunities to face what we fear, what we need to realize, or what we need to overcome. Each time our spiraling cycle brings us to the site of our main problem, we gain greater awareness and our next response will be wiser than the last, until finally we can pass Nemesis in peace in harmony with our deepest values.

Journey's end

What happens at the end of the myth? Eros and Psyche are reunited, their marriage is celebrated on Olympus. Psyche gives birth to a daughter named Joy. Atalanta chooses the apples, loses the contest, and marries Hippomenes. Note that, having shown courage and competence, the heroine does not leave at sunset alone on horseback, like the archetypal cowboy hero. There is nothing of a conquering hero in her. Reunion and home is how her journey ends.

The journey of individuality - the psychological search for wholeness - ends with the union of opposites in the inner marriage of the "male" and "female" aspects of the personality, which can be symbolically represented by the Eastern symbols - Yang and Yin, connected in a circle. More abstractly and without gender, the result of the journey towards wholeness is the ability to work and love, to be active and receptive, independent and loving part of the couple. All these are the components of ourselves, to the knowledge of which we can come through life experiences. And these are our potential opportunities with which we set off.

In the final chapters of Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring, the last temptations to wear the ring were nevertheless overcome and the Ring of Omnipotence was forever destroyed. This round of fighting evil was won, the heroic task of the hobbits was completed, and they returned home to the Shire. Thomas Eliot in Four Quartets writes:

We will not stop our search
And at the end of wanderings we will come
Where we came from
And we will see our land for the first time.

In real life, such stories do not end very spectacularly. A recovering alcoholic can go through hell and come back to appear to others as an unremarkable teetotaler. The heroine, who repelled hostile attacks, who proved her strength in the fight against the goddesses, in everyday life often gives the impression of a completely ordinary woman- like the hobbits who returned to the Shire. However, she does not know when a new adventure, called to test her essence, will herald itself.

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Gene Shinoda Bohlen is a psychiatrist, Jungian analyst in private practice, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of California Medical Center, and internationally renowned lecturer and author of several books.

FIND YOURSELF AMONG THE GODDESSES!!! - Natalia Vinogradova

They say that with men, each of us should be a goddess. Yes, psychologists say. They described the types of our relationship with the stronger sex with the help of ... ancient Greek mythology. Which goddess do you look like?

Demeter is a mother woman.

You strive for the constant care of your loved ones;
- perceive a man as a child;
- inclined to make decisions for all family members;
- you think that your relatives will not cope without you.

In ancient Greek mythology, Demeter is the goddess of fertility and agriculture. This is the type of woman-mother, sensitive and caring. She sees her happiness in the family: she seeks to warm everyone with warmth, "to take under her wing." But sometimes such excessive care turns into importunity and even imperiousness. Demeter perceives her beloved man as her child. Tries to make decisions for her husband and difficult situations take a hit. It is hard for her with a man who is looking for entertainment outside the walls of the house.

Advice. For harmonious relations with loved ones, give them freedom. Your guardianship can be burdensome. Trust that your loved ones are able to solve their own problems: this will help save your time and effort.

Persephone - woman daughter

You perceive your beloved as a father;
- ready to dissolve in it, sacrificing their interests;
- you often lack affection and care;
- you tend to withdraw into yourself and get hung up on anything.

Sincere, receptive, understanding, Persephone is ready to sacrifice any interests for the sake of her "daddy". Her secret desire is to be near her beloved all her life, completely giving herself to him. If necessary, she will study, work, but not because she herself wants it - her chosen one likes it. If she fails to meet her one and only, Persephone suffers, feeling left out and abandoned.

Advice. It is important for you to learn to stop in your self-sacrifice and look for other ways of self-realization: work, sports, hobbies. By fully devoting yourself to a man, you will cease to be valuable as a person - and he will lose interest and respect for you.

Hera - a wife with a capital letter

You are considered wise and just;
- you can find a common language with almost anyone;
- for your husband you are a partner and adviser;
- Loyalty for you - the highest value.

Like the ancient Greek goddess Hera, who was subordinate to her husband Zeus, a woman of this type is ready to faithfully serve her husband. A wise and experienced wife, she will help him advance in his career, fulfill himself. This does not mean at all that Hera does not think about herself. She is a wife, which means she should always be beautiful and well-groomed. Hera is smart, well-read, interesting with her. She also comprehensively seeks to develop children, for whom mother is an indisputable authority. The only thing that Hera will not forgive is betrayal or deceit, for she herself remains faithful to her husband and considers it a guarantee of family happiness.

Advice. You're used to keeping your feelings to yourself. And sometimes you feel a lack of warmth from your chosen one. Do not be afraid to talk to him about it, because your inner harmony is also his happiness.

Hestia - mistress of the house

Since childhood, you dreamed of a strong family;
- you feel safe only in your home;
- I do not agree that a housewife is not a profession;
- you know how to meet and see off.

Her house is always clean, warm and cozy, and on weekends it smells like pies. Hestia is the true keeper of the hearth. Calm and reasonable Hestia would never exchange her fortress for the outside world - cruel and full of surprises. noisy parties, long journeys, crazy ideas - pleasures are not for her. She does not need to realize herself in a career: Hestia's work is in the family. A man with such a woman will be comfortable and calm, however, he can get bored.

Advice. Don't focus on the house. Get out of your fortress more often to gain impressions and see the world. Find friends with whom you are interested, look for yourself in creativity, read more - diversify your life.

Athena - general in a skirt

It is important for you to make a career;
- you know how to solve problems "like a man";
- you strive to lead the stronger sex;
- you respect leaders - the same as yourself.

The goddess of war, Athena, was born from the head of Zeus. She is a good strategist and

We will look at the archetypes that operate in women's souls. They are personified in the images of the Greek goddesses. For example, Demeter, the goddess of motherhood, is the embodiment mother archetype. Other Goddesses: Persephone - daughter, Gera - wife, Aphrodite - beloved, Artemis - sister and rival, Athena - strategist, Hestia - homemaker. In reality, archetypes do not have names, and images of goddesses are useful only when they correspond to female sensations and feelings.

Goddesses differ in their affections and how they treat others. Each of them is characterized by a special perception of the world, as well as preferred roles and motivations. In order for a woman to love deeply, work with joy, be sexual and live creatively, all of the above goddesses must be expressed in her life, each in its own time.

Consider three groups: virgin goddesses, vulnerable goddesses, and the alchemical goddess.

Virgin Goddesses

Artemis, Athena and Hestia

FROM sincere love to you,

P.S. For all questions please contact

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J. Bohlen. GODDESSES IN EVERY WOMAN

Introduction. THE GODDESS IS IN EVERYONE OF US!

In any case, it seems to me that women ask for help from a psychotherapist in order to learn to be the main characters, the leading characters in the story of your life. To do this, they need to make conscious decisions that will determine their lives. Previously, women were not even aware of the powerful influence that cultural stereotypes have on them; in a similar way, they are now usually unaware of what powerful forces lurk within themselves, forces that can determine their actions and feelings. It is to these forces, represented in the guise of ancient Greek goddesses, that I dedicate my book.

These mighty inner circuits, or archetypes, explain the main differences between women. Some, for example, in order to feel like an accomplished person, need monogamy, the institution of marriage and children - such women suffer, but endure if they cannot achieve this goal. For them, traditional roles are of the greatest importance. They are very different from other types of women who value their independence above all because they focus on what is important to them personally. No less peculiar is the third type - women who are attracted by the intensity of feelings and new experiences, because of which they enter into all new personal relationships or rush from one type of creativity to another. Finally, another type of woman prefers loneliness; Spirituality is of the utmost importance to them. The fact that for one woman an accomplishment may seem like complete nonsense to another - everything is determined by the archetype of which goddess prevails in her.

Moreover, in every woman coexist several goddesses. The more complex her character, the more likely it is that various goddesses are actively manifested in her - and what is significant for one of them is meaningless for the others ...

The archetypes of the goddesses are also interesting to men. Those who want to better understand women can use the archetype system to classify women and gain a deeper understanding of what to expect from them. Moreover, men will be able to understand women with a complex and seemingly contradictory character.

Finally, such a system of archetypes can be extremely useful for psychotherapists working with women. It offers curious clinical tools for understanding interpersonal and internal conflicts. Goddess archetypes help explain differences in character and make it easier to identify potential psychological difficulties and psychiatric symptoms. In addition, they indicate possible ways development of a woman along the line of one or another "goddess".

This book describes a new approach to female psychology based on female images ancient Greek goddesses that have existed in the human imagination for more than three millennia. Women's psychology of this type is different from all theories, where " normal woman" is defined as obeying a single "correct model", personality schema or psychological structure. Our theory is based on observations of diversity normal differences in female psychology.

Much of what I know about women comes from professional experience—from what I learned as a psychiatrist and Jungian psychoanalyst, from teaching and counseling experience as a practicing teacher at the University of California and as a principal analyst at the Jung Institute in San Francisco.

However, the description of female psychology, which is given on the pages of this book, is based not only on professional knowledge. Most of my ideas are based on the fact that I myself am a woman who has known different female roles - daughter, wife, mother of a son and daughter. My understanding increased through conversations with girlfriends and other women. In both cases, women become for each other a kind of "mirrors" - we see ourselves in the reflection of other people's experiences and realize the common thing that connects all women, as well as those aspects of our own psyche that we were not aware of before.

My understanding of female psychology was also determined by the fact that I am a woman living in the modern era. In 1963, I entered graduate school. That year, two events occurred that eventually sparked the women's rights movement in the 70s. First, Betty Friedan published her Womanish Mystery, where she highlighted the emptiness and dissatisfaction of an entire generation of women who lived exclusively for other people and someone else's life. Friedan identified the source of this lack of happiness as a problem of self-determination, rooted in developmental arrest. She believed that this problem was caused by our very culture, which does not allow women to recognize and satisfy their basic needs for growth and development, to realize their human potential. Her book, which put an end to common cultural stereotypes, Freudian dogma and the manipulation of women by the media, offered principles whose time is long overdue. Her ideas gave vent to repressed violent feelings, and they later led to the birth of the women's liberation movement and, finally, to the creation of the National Organization of Women.

Also in 1963, under President John F. Kennedy, the Commission on the Status of Women released a report that described the inequality in the economic system of the United States. Women got paid for the same job fewer men; they were denied vacancies and denied promotion opportunities. This flagrant injustice has become yet another confirmation of how undeservedly the role of women in modern society is underestimated.

So I entered the world of professional psychiatry at a time when the United States was on the cusp of a women's rights movement. In the 1970s my understanding of the problem increased. I began to realize the inequality and discrimination of women; I realized that the cultural standards set by men were themselves rewarding women for uncomplaining obedience or punishing women for rejecting stereotyped roles. I ended up joining a handful of female colleagues from the Northern California Psychiatric Association and the American Psychiatric Association.

A double look at female psychology

Working on the basis of either Jungian psychoanalysis or female-oriented psychiatry, I seemed to be building a bridge between two worlds. My Jungian colleagues didn't really care what was going on in political and social life. Most of them seemed only vaguely aware of the importance of women's struggle for their rights. As for my female psychiatric feminist friends, if they considered me a Jungian psychoanalyst, they probably saw it either as my personal esoteric and mystical interest, or as just some additional specialty that, although deserving of respect, has no attitudes towards women's issues. But I, torn between one and the other, over time comprehended what depths the merging of two approaches - Jungian and feminist - can reveal. They are combined into a kind of "binocular vision" of female psychology.

The Jungian approach made me realize that women are subject to powerful inner forces - archetypes which can be personified by the images of ancient Greek goddesses. In turn, the feminist approach helped me understand that external forces, or stereotypes- those roles that society expects from women - impose on them the templates of some goddesses and suppress others. As a result, I began to see that every woman is somewhere in between: her inner drives are determined by goddess archetypes, and her outer actions are cultural stereotypes.

As soon as a woman becomes aware of such influences, this knowledge becomes power. "Goddesses" are powerful invisible forces that determine behavior and feelings. The knowledge about the "goddesses" in each of us is a new territory of consciousness opening before a woman. When she comprehends which "goddesses" manifest in her as the dominant internal forces, there is an understanding of herself, the power of certain instincts, an awareness of her priorities and abilities, the opportunity to find personal meaning in those decisions that other people can remain indifferent to.

"Goddess" schemes also have an impact on relationships with men. They help to explain certain relationship difficulties and the mechanism of attraction that women of one type or another have for certain men. Do they prefer men who are powerful and successful? Nondescript and creative? Infantile? What kind of "goddess" invisibly pushes a woman to a certain type of men? Such schemes determine its choice and stability of relationships.

The schemes of the relationships themselves also bear the imprint of this or that goddess. "Father and daughter", "brother and sister", "sisters", "mother and son", "mother and daughter" or "lovers" - each such pair is a configuration characteristic of a particular goddess.

Every woman is endowed with divine gifts that should be studied and accepted with gratitude. In addition, each has superimposed boundaries that must be recognized and overcome in order to change. A woman is not able to resist the scheme set by the fundamental archetype of the goddess until she realizes the very existence of such an archetype in herself and does not try to embody her potential with its help.

Myths as insights

For example, in the ancient Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche, the first test of Psyche was the task of sorting through a huge mountain of seeds and decomposing the grains of each type into separate piles. Her first reaction to this task (as, indeed, to the three subsequent ones) was despair. I have noticed that this myth fits well with a number of my patients who had a variety of problems to solve. One was a university graduate who was bogged down in her most complex thesis and did not know how to organize her work material. The other is a depressed young mother who needed to figure out where her precious time was going, prioritize and find a way to continue her painting. Every woman, like Psyche, had to do more than she thought she could - but these obstacles arose by her choice. For both patients, the myth, reflecting their own situation, became a source of courage, gave insights on how to respond to the new demands of life, and gave meaning to the struggle ahead.

When a woman feels that there is a mythological dimension in any of her occupations, the understanding of this touches the deepest centers of creativity in her. Myths evoke feelings and imagination because they are connected with stories that are part of the common heritage of mankind. The ancient Greek myths, as well as all other fairy tales and myths known to people for thousands of years, remain modern and individually significant, because they contain truths about experiences that are common to all.

Interpretations of myths can bring intellectual and intuitive understanding. Myths are like dreams that are remembered even if they are incomprehensible. This is explained by the fact that myths, like dreams, are full of symbols. According to mythologist Joseph Campbell, "A dream is a personal myth, and a myth is an impersonal dream." No wonder myths invariably seem vaguely familiar to us!

Illumination as a response to the interpretation of a myth means that the corresponding myth symbolically describes something that is significant for this particular person. Now a person comprehends something important and realizes that it is the truth. Such a deep level of understanding was felt more than once by the audience, before whom I spoke with a retelling of myths and an interpretation of their meaning. Such training touches the sensitive strings in the soul, and the theory of female psychology turns into either self-knowledge or an understanding of how important it is for a psychologist to communicate with real women.

I started using mythological comparisons in seminars on the psychology of women in the late 60s and early 70s, first at the University of California Medical Center, then at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and at the Carl Jung Institute in San Francisco. Over the next fifteen years, lecturing gave me additional opportunities to develop my own ideas and observe the reaction of listeners in Seattle, Minneapolis, Denver, Kansas City, Houston, Portland, Fort Wayne, Washington, Toronto, New York - not to mention Sun Francisco where I live. And in every lecture, the responses were the same: when I used myths in combination with clinical material, personal experiences and insights of specific women, the audience received a new, deeper understanding.

I usually started with the myth of Psyche - a woman for whom personal relationships were the main thing in life. Then I told the second myth with my own interpretation. It was a myth about women who did not lose their temper when faced with difficulties, but, on the contrary, experienced a surge of strength due to difficult tasks - as a result, they studied better and settled in life. The heroine of this myth was Atalanta, a swift-footed huntress who achieved great success both in running and in hunting and defeated all men who tried to compete with her. This beautiful woman can be compared to Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt and the moon.

Naturally, these lectures raised questions from my listeners about other goddesses. I began to read about them, trying to determine their type and the qualities they personified. This gave me my own insights. For example, once a jealous and vindictive woman entered my office - and I immediately recognized in her a furious, humiliated Hera, the wife of Zeus and the goddess of marriage. The dissolute behavior of her husband prompted this jealous goddess to tirelessly seek out and destroy "rivals".

As it turned out, one day this patient found out that her husband had an affair on the side. Since then, she has been obsessed with thoughts of a rival. She constantly saw pictures of revenge in her dreams, suspected that she was following her, and in the end she was so carried away by settling scores with this rival that she almost lost her mind. It was a typical Hera - her anger was not directed at all at her husband, but it was he who deceived her and cheated on her. This analogy helped my patient to understand that the true cause of this "Hera reaction" was her husband's infidelity. Now it became clear to her why she was overwhelmed with rage and how harmful these feelings were. She realized that she should not turn into a vengeful Hera, but openly discuss with her husband his behavior and face their problems in married life.

There was also such a case: one of my colleagues suddenly began to speak out against the Equal Rights Amendment, which I supported. I was filled with resentment and anger - and then suddenly I experienced another epiphany. It was a conflict of two different goddesses in one soul. At that moment, I felt and behaved like Artemis, the archetype of the Big Sister, protector of women. My opponent, on the contrary, was like Athena - the daughter of Zeus, born from his head, the patroness of heroes, the protector of patriarchal foundations, a kind of "daddy's daughter."

On another occasion, while reading about the kidnapping of Patty Hearst*, I suddenly realized that the myth of Persephone, the girl who was kidnapped, raped and held captive by Hades, the god of the underworld, was being played out before our very eyes. Hirst was a student at the University of California, the adopted daughter of two of the most influential "Olympic gods" of our time. She was kidnapped (taken to the underworld) by the leader of the Symbiotic Liberation Army, kept in a dark closet, and repeatedly raped.

[*] Patricia Hearst (born February 2, 1954) is the adopted daughter of the owner of a major newspaper publisher in San Francisco. At the age of 19, she was kidnapped by a social revolutionary group, who demanded a huge ransom for her, and then unexpectedly announced that she herself wanted to become a member of this group. Participated in an armed bank robbery. After her imprisonment, she married her bodyguard, mother of two children and an actress. - Note. ed.

Soon I saw the goddesses in each woman. Knowing how "goddesses" manifest in the psyche deepened my understanding of both everyday and extraordinary situations.

Here's an example: which goddess's influence dominates when a woman is busy in the kitchen or cleaning the house? I realized that this is solved by a simple check - how a woman cooks, and whether she maintains cleanliness in the house if her husband leaves for a week. When "Hera" * or "Aphrodite" dine alone, this is most likely a sad and pathetic sight: something like a store-bought "home-made cottage cheese." When such a woman is alone, everything that is in the sideboard or refrigerator will do - what a contrast compared to those exquisite and complex dishes that she usually prepares for her husband! After all, she cooks only for him: what he loves, and not herself, because she is either a “glorious little wife who knows how to cook deliciously” (Hera), or a caring mother (Demeter), or an obsequious spouse (Persephone), or seductive beloved (Aphrodite).

However, if Hestia dominates her character, a woman, even alone, will set the table and arrange a chic dinner for herself - and the usual order will reign in the house. If the motivation for domestic work is determined by the archetype of other goddesses, the woman is likely to live in complete disarray until the return of her husband. But "Hestia" will certainly put fresh flowers in a vase, even if the husband does not see them. Her apartment or house will always be cozy, because she lives here- and not because she wants to show off in front of someone.

Then I wondered if this approach to understanding female psychology through myths would be useful to others. The answer was my lectures on "Goddesses in every woman." The listeners were moved and intrigued, they whispered excitedly when it came to mythology as a source of insight. They began to better understand women, and this touched the most sensitive strings of the soul. When I talked about myths, people heard, felt and understood what I was talking about; when I interpreted them, the reaction clearly indicated insights. Both men and women comprehended the meaning of myths as a personal truth, received confirmation of what they had known for a long time, but only now they truly realized.

I also spoke at meetings of professional organizations and discussed my ideas with psychiatrists and psychologists. Many sections of this book were originally papers that I presented at the International Association for Analytical Psychology, the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, the American Psychiatric Association, the Institute for the Study of Women of the American Ortho-Psychiatric Association, and the Association for Transpersonal Psychology. My colleagues found this approach useful for medical practice and appreciated the deep penetration into character patterns and psychiatric symptoms, such as the concept of "goddesses". For most of them, this was the first description of female psychology offered by a Jungian psychoanalyst.

Only my Jungian colleagues were aware that I developed - and continue to develop - new principles of female psychology, very different from some of Jung's concepts, and also combine a purely female point of view with the psychology of archetypes. Although this book is written for a wide range of readers, those who understand Jungianism will notice that female psychology based on goddess archetypes challenges Jung's conventional theory of Anime and Animus(see chapter 3).

Many Jungian specialists wrote about the archetypal images of the ancient Greek gods and goddesses. I am indebted to these authors for much of my knowledge and insights, and I often quote from them (see chapter notes). However, by selecting seven Greek goddesses and categorizing them into three specific categories according to psychological characteristics, I have created both a new typology and new ways of understanding intrapsychic conflicts (see full book). In my typology, I added the concept of Aphrodite consciousness, which became the third model, complementing the focused consciousness and diffuse consciousness, long described in Jung's theory (see chapter 11).

In addition, I present two additional (new) psychological concepts, albeit somewhat superficially, since a detailed presentation of them would be a deviation from the main theme of the book.

First, the typology of "goddesses" explains the discrepancies between the behavior of women and Jung's theory of psychotypes. According to Jung, a person belongs to an extraverted or introverted category, relies in his assessments on feelings or on reason, and perceives intuitively or sensually (that is, through the five senses). Moreover, according to the classical Jungian theory, one of these four functions (thinking, emotions, intuition and sensory perception) is considered to develop consciously and predominate. Whatever the dominant function, the other function of this pair was considered to be less reliable or poorly conscious. Exceptions in this model "one or the other" or "more developed and least conscious", have already been described by psychologists June Singer and Mary Loomis. I am sure that the goddess archetypes will help to better explain the exceptions often found among women.

For example, when a woman "switches" - that is, moves from one facet of her psyche to another - she shifts to another archetype of the goddess. Let's say, in one situation, she is an extroverted, logically thinking Athena, paying great attention to trifles, and in another situation, she is the introverted keeper of the hearth of Hestia - the case when "devils live in a still pool." Such shifts explain the difficulties that can be encountered in determining the Jungian type of a multifaceted woman.

Another example: a woman can be acutely aware of aesthetic subtleties (this is the influence of Aphrodite) and not notice that the fire is still burning on the stove or the gas tank is almost empty (little things that do not escape Athena's attention). The dominant "goddess" explains how the same function (in this case sensory) can, paradoxically, be both highly developed and unconscious at the same time (see Chapter 14).

Secondly, medical practice has helped me understand that the power of the goddess archetypes dominates the female ego and causes psychiatric symptoms comparable to those attributes of power that the goddesses were historically endowed with - as this power declines from the image of the ancient European Great Goddess to various levels of the ancient Greek goddesses, who were daughters of gods or goddesses-maidens (see chapter 1).

Although this book provides theory and information useful to experts, it is written for anyone who wants to better understand women - and especially women who are closest to readers, loved, but still remain a mystery. Finally, this book is intended for women themselves, to whom it will help them discover the hidden goddesses within themselves.

Introduction. THE GODDESS IS IN EVERYONE OF US!

In any case, it seems to me that women ask for help from a psychotherapist in order to learn to be the main characters, the leading characters in the story of your life. To do this, they need to make conscious decisions that will determine their lives. Previously, women were not even aware of the powerful influence that cultural stereotypes have on them; in a similar way, they are usually unaware now of what mighty powers lie within themselves, powers that can determine their actions and feelings. It is to these forces, represented in the guise of ancient Greek goddesses, that I dedicate my book.

These mighty inner circuits, or archetypes, explain the main differences between women. Some, for example, in order to feel like an accomplished person, need monogamy, the institution of marriage and children - such women suffer, but endure if they cannot achieve this goal. For them, traditional roles are of the greatest importance. They are very different from other types of women who value their independence above all because they focus on what is important to them personally. No less peculiar is the third type - women who are attracted by the intensity of feelings and new experiences, because of which they enter into ever new personal relationships or rush from one type of creativity to another. Finally, another type of woman prefers loneliness; Spirituality is of the utmost importance to them. The fact that for one woman an accomplishment, another may seem like complete nonsense - everything is determined by which archetype of which goddess prevails in her.

Finally, such a system of archetypes can be extremely useful for psychotherapists working with women. It offers curious clinical tools for understanding interpersonal and internal conflicts. Goddess archetypes help explain differences in character and make it easier to identify potential psychological difficulties and psychiatric symptoms. In addition, they indicate the possible ways of development of a woman along the line of one or another "goddess".

This book describes a new approach to female psychology, based on the female images of ancient Greek goddesses that have existed in the human imagination for more than three millennia. This type of female psychology is different from all theories where the "normal woman" is defined as obeying a single "correct model", personality schema or psychological structure. Our theory is based on observations of diversity normal differences in female psychology.

Much of what I know about women comes from professional experience—from what I learned as a psychiatrist and Jungian psychoanalyst, from teaching and consulting experience as a practicing teacher at the University of California and chief analyst at the Jung Institute in San Francisco. .

Also in 1963, under President John F. Kennedy, the Commission on the Status of Women released a report that described the inequality in the economic system of the United States. Women were paid less than men for the same work; they were denied vacancies and denied promotion opportunities. This flagrant injustice has become yet another confirmation of how undeservedly the role of women in modern society is underestimated.

Home baking recipes with photos - step by step master classes

". "All goddesses are potentially present in every woman." Myths as insights

Introduction. THE GODDESS IS IN EVERYONE OF US!

A double look at female psychology

Myths as insights

Chapter 1. GODDESSES AS INTERNAL IMAGES

Goddesses as archetypes

Family tree

History and mythology

Historical goddesses and archetypes

Virgin Goddesses

Artemis, Athena and Hestia

J. Bohlen. GODDESSES IN EVERY WOMAN

Introduction. THE GODDESS IS IN EVERYONE OF US!

A double look at female psychology

Myths as insights

Introduction. THE GODDESS IS IN EVERYONE OF US!

Logic tasks for preschoolers and advice to parents

Summary of the lesson "air and its properties"