“How Fairy Tales Nurture the Creative Self”
“Princess at Window” by Viviane Silvera (from Wild Princess: The Princess Who Found Her Name
On Psychology Today, Executive Editor Lybi Ma interviews Dale Kushner about her new book, Wild Freedom, and what we can learn from fairy tales: how they present a record of universal human challenges—fear, jealousy, abandonment, betrayal—and offer a map to navigating these collective struggles.
Can fairy tales and the unconscious mind help us navigate life's challenges?
For children as well as adults, fairy tales help us make sense of our lives. They speak the language of the unconscious through images, archetypes, and metaphors. They are simultaneously engaging and delightful tales and also representations of psychological truths about ourselves and the world that transcend cultural and racial differences. Fairy tales invite us to face our difficult emotions indirectly and with a sense of safety. . . .
Lybi Ma is the executive editor of Psychology Today and has been with the publication for more than two decades. She has written for or edited publications including Discover, American Health, and CBSHealthwatch. She graduated from the University of California at Santa Cruz and lives with her husband in Westchester, New York. She has a blended family of five grown kids plus their partners (which adds up to 10 beautiful people). Ma is the author of How to Be Less Miserable.
