Jungian Views on Folktales ☼

Fancy and imagination (mythopoetical treatment) depends on fanciful people (mythopoets) in the first place.

Some of the things that young ones come to dream of, tends to relate to fantasy stories they come across at a tender age.

Psychoanalyses do not pay if its clients find themselves unable to remedy a thing in their own lives: One may prepare for that.

1. The realm of fantasy and mind analysis are nothing new

"Children must get their share of fairy tales and stories in order to live in the warmth of words and light of literature." [D. Bouvet: "Reading and speaking". Rev Laryngol Otol Rhinol (Bord), 1990, 111:4, 305-8]

"[There should be more] careful distinctions between that material which is common to many different cultures and that which differs profoundly from one culture to another. Such categories include [perhaps] social values with reference to gender, variant analysis, and the impact of nineteenth century values on nineteenth century tale collections, especially the Grimms' Kinder- und Hausmärchen." [R.B. Bottigheimer: "Bettelheim's witch: the questionable relation between fantasy and psychoanalysis", Psychother Psychosom Med Psychol, 1989 Aug, 39:8, 294-9]

"Fairy-tales can be used in therapy with children and with adults". [H. Dieckmann: "Fairy-tales in psychotherapy", Journal of Analytical Psychology, 1997 April, 42:2, 253-68]◊

2. Mythopoetic treatment depends on mythopoets in the first place

"In Marie-Louise von Franz's analysis of (The Piano by Jane Campion) fairy tale ...(the mute heroine) Ada's ultimate renunciation of her husband is symbolically reinforced by the developing personality of her daughter Flora. The changes in both characters can be ... the emergence of a new psychological readiness"." [J. Izod: "The Piano, the animus, and the colonial experience". J Anal Psychol, 1996 Jan, 41:1, 117-36]

"[Someone among us] extols the "wicked stepmother" stereotype in fairy tales for providing a safe outlet for child-mother aggression. [For:] Dualistic thinking is not ubiquitous in childhood, nor is it ever outgrown. Rather, it is a mode of organizing experience mythopoetically. [In harmony with this line of thought] there [don't have to be sick] moral objections to ... the propagation of the wicked stepmother stereotype." [Cf. M. Radomisli: "Stereotypes, stepmothers, and splitting". Am J Psychoanal, 1981 Summer, 41:2, 121-7]

The everyday life of "hunchbacks", how they saw themselves and were seen by others, can usually only be deduced indirectly from such as fairy-tales and myths, beliefs and superstitions, or through theological and philosophical writers.. Hunchbacks were generally burdened with a stigmatised, pitiful outsider fate somehow. No effective treatment was found. Good citizens showed little compassion. [Cf. U. Halter and A. Krödel: "Praying for the hunchback man. On the cultural history of scoliosis and kyphosis". Z Orthop Ihre Grenzgeb, 1997 Nov, 135:6, 557-62]

3. Your educational challenge - maybe each night

"Storytelling is an effective way of transferring knowledge and values from one person to another. Stories can cross individual, cultural, and educational differences more powerfully than most other methods of learning. For thousands of years stories have been used for teaching." [K. Kerfoot and G.M. Sarosi: "Hero making through storytelling: the nurse manager's challenge". Nurs Econ, 1993 Mar-Apr, 11:2, 107-8, 102]

And then, one surely needs to rest well and not believe everything one is told.

So

Young ones need lots of warm acceptance, and that comes first.

Later on, young ones may be helped to deal with dominant life challenges by well designed stories told to them and well enacted too, and followed up by other artistic means as well.