Fantasies of magical romance and violence: how we breed disturbed love attachments.
Jungian analyst James Hollis proposes that romantic fantasy, the search for the magical other, has “replaced institutional religion as the greatest motive, power and influence in our lives.” Hollis says that “no partner, no matter how worthy, can compete with that fantasy,” an illusion, that when it fails, often leads to the “myth of never being good enough.” In the fairy tale of romantic love, a woman is “prey to false notions of fulfillment,” writes Maureen Murdock. She sea
Dutiful daughter, darling doll. The hazards of being a princess.
Throughout the literature surrounding fathers and daughters, there exists pervasive imagery of father as hero, protector, and groom, with daughter placed in the role of “darling doll” and “dutiful daughter.” “Puella aeterna,” Latin for “eternal girl,” describes “the brilliant but volatile side of ourselves that is by turns the seemingly immortal Prince or Princess and the helplessly vulnerable, wounded boy or girl” (Beebe, 2004, p. 102). Linda Leonard, author of The Wounded W
The hero in a thousand forms: The need for a new mythology about the value of daughters.
If I ask you to imagine a hero ... who shows up in your mind? For many women we have ingrained images of mythical male figures in our minds — soldiers, gladiators, military figures, larger-than-life movie stars, Harlequin romance covers, perhaps even images of our own fathers or father substitutes. Whether or not we rationally believe that we are looking for these heroes to save us, we often still live our lives unconsciously desiring and attracting such individuals (but most
