Story Medicine
Story Medicine: Ancient Tales and Their Medicine for Modern Life
Ancient fairy tales, myths, and legends contain profound wisdom for modern life.
Psychotherapist Joe Summerfield explores traditional stories from cultures worldwide - Greek myths, Grimm's fairy tales, Norse legends, Indigenous tales, African folklore, and more - revealing the medicine encoded within them.
Each episode offers three parts: a story told in full, an analysis uncovering symbolic meaning and contemporary relevance, and practical integration exercises to help you embody the medicine.
Use it your way:
Let these stories accompany your morning coffee, evening wind-down, or household pottering. These tales make perfect companions for quiet moments.
Or engage more deeply: the weekly integration practices form a structured personal development course. Over time, this consistent work can significantly shift your experience of life... and it's entirely free.
Perfect for:
Adults seeking psychological depth, young people exploring life's questions, parents sharing wisdom with children, therapists and educators, mythology enthusiasts, and anyone curious about the collective unconscious and archetypal patterns shaping our lives.
Topics explored:
Jungian psychology, fairy tale analysis, mythology, depth psychology, personal transformation, archetypal patterns, shadow work, individuation, collective unconscious, traditional wisdom, therapeutic storytelling.
New episodes weekly.
Hosted by Joe Summerfield, psychotherapist, relational therapist, and creator of Connected State Therapy. Drawing on Jungian psychology and over 20 years of therapeutic experience, Joe bridges ancient wisdom and modern application. From shadow work to individuation, from grief to wholeness, each story offers medicine for navigating the human experience.
Story Medicine
S1E1 - Introduction
Welcome to Story Medicine
In this introduction, Joe Summerfield shares what Story Medicine is all about: why stories have been such a constant companion throughout human history - and why we're instinctively drawn to them across all cultures and times.
Stories are more than entertainment. They're encoded with the cumulative wisdom of all who have come before us, containing universal truths about life and the self, hidden like treasure waiting to be decoded.
Each episode of Story Medicine offers a complete story told in full, reflections on the medicine it carries, and practical integration exercises to help you receive that wisdom.
Whether you're here for a good story time or ready to explore the deeper patterns these ancient tales reveal, you're welcome.
Many of these stories Joe will be encountering fresh, discovering them alongside you. In Episode 2, we'll begin with "The Handless Maiden" from the Grimm Brothers' collection - a tale about loss, agency, and what can grow back through grief.
Learn more about Joe's therapeutic work: www.joesummerfield.co.uk
Connect on Instagram: @joe.therapies
