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
S1E11 - Psyche and Eros: The Soul's Journey to Wholeness
In this episode of Story Medicine, we explore "Psyche and Eros" from Greco-Roman mythology. This story offers a map of the soul's journey from unconscious to conscious, from mortal to divine. It explores the themes of divine union of masculine and feminine, wholeness, and integration.
Psyche's beauty provokes a goddess's jealousy, leading to a mysterious marriage, a forbidden lamp, and four impossible tasks. With help from ants, reeds, eagles, and towers, she descends to the underworld itself - only to fail at the final test and discover that some rescues require love.
This story speaks to anyone who has undergone wounding in order to bring light to darkness, anyone facing tasks that seem impossible, anyone who feels held back from genuine connection, or anyone who still believes they must be perfect to be worthy of love.
The episode includes the complete story told in full, depth psychology analysis revealing the archetypal patterns of individuation and sacred marriage, and four practical integration exercises to help you embody the medicine.
Learn more about Joe's therapeutic work: www.joesummerfield.co.uk
Connect on Instagram: @joe.therapies
