were struggling with various important tasks. One was a graduate
student who felt overwhelmed by a term paper, not knowing how
she could organize the mound of material. Another was a depressed
young mother who had to figure out where her time went, sort out
her priorities, and find a way to continue to paint. Each woman was,
like Psyche, called on to do more than she felt capable of, yet on a
course that she herself had chosen. They both took heart from a myth
that mirrored their situation, provided them with insight into the
way they reacted to new demands, and gave a larger meaning to
their struggle.
When a woman senses that there is a mythic dimension to some-
thing she is undertaking, that knowledge touches and inspires deep
creative centers in her. Myths evoke feeling and imagination and
touch on themes that are part of the human collective inheritance.
The Greek myths—and all the other fairytales and myths that are
still told after thousands of years—remain current and personally
relevant because there is a ring of truth in them about shared human
experience.
When a myth is interpreted, intellectually or intuitively grasped
understanding can result. A myth is like a dream that we recall even
when it is not understood, because it is symbolically important.
According to mythologist Joseph Campbell, “Dream is the personal-
ized myth, myth the depersonalized dream.”^2 No wonder myths
invariably seem vaguely familiar.
When a dream is correctly interpreted, the dreamer has a flash of
insight—an “Aha!”—as the situation to which the dream refers be-
comes clear. The dreamer intuitively grasps and keeps the know-
ledge.
When someone has an “Aha!” response to an interpretation of a
myth, the particular myth is symbolically addressing something that
is personally important to him or her. The person now grasps
something and sees through to a truth. This deeper level of under-
standing has occurred in audiences I have spoken to when I have
told myths and then interpreted their meaning. It is a way of learning
that strikes a chord, in which theory about women’s psychology
becomes either self-knowledge or knowledge about significant wo-
men to whom the men and women in the audience relate.
I began using mythology in seminars on the psychology
Goddesses in Everywoman