of women toward the end of the 1960s and early 1970s, first at the
University of California Medical Center—Langley Porter Psychiatric
Institute, then at the University of California at Santa Cruz and the
C. G. Jung Institute in San Francisco. In the next decade and a half,
lecturing gave me further opportunity to develop my thoughts and
get responses from audiences in Seattle, Minneapolis, Denver, Kansas
City, Houston, Portland, Fort Wayne, Washington, D.C., Toronto,
New York, and in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I live. Wherever
I lectured, the response was the same: when I used myths in conjunc-
tion with clinical material, personal experiences, and insights from
the women’s movement, new and deeper understanding resulted.
I had begun with the Psyche myth, a myth that spoke to women
who put relationships first. Then I told a second myth, one whose
meaning I had developed, that described women who were chal-
lenged rather than overwhelmed when there were obstacles to
overcome or tasks to master and who consequently could do well
in school and out in the world. The mythological heroine was
Atalanta, a runner and a hunter who succeeded well at both roles,
outdoing men who tried to defeat her. She was a beautiful woman
who was compared to Artemis, Greek goddess of the Hunt and the
Moon.
This way of teaching naturally invited questions about other
goddesses, and I began to read and wonder about their range and
what they represented. I began to have my own “Aha!” reactions.
For example, a jealous, vindictive woman walked into my office,
and I recognized in her the raging, humiliated Hera, Goddess of
Marriage and consort of Zeus. Her consort’s philandering provoked
the goddess into repeated efforts to seek and destroy “the other
woman.”
This patient was a woman who had just discovered that her hus-
band was having an affair. Since then, she had been obsessed with
the other woman. She had vindictive fantasies, was spying on her,
and was so caught up with getting even that she felt crazy. As was
typical of Hera, her anger was not directed toward her husband,
who had been the one who lied to her and been unfaithful. It was
very helpful for my patient to see that her husband’s infidelity had
evoked a Hera response. She now understood why she felt “taken
over” by her rage,
There Are Goddesses in Everywoman