At your age right now, have you felt like a kid finding just what you wanted as you unwrapped a present? That’s how I felt when I got Hugh Marr’s promised book. It is the missing piece in support materials for applying the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator® to your life.

Finding Your Story: Using Archetypes to Guide Your Personal Journey includes 35 exercises that take you on a deepening journey to the archetypal core of your foundational life story—that is, the “whole of your life” story. The exercises help you first connect with all 12 archetypes in your life now. What is then very new, even if you are already well-versed in them, is Hugh’s model for doing a life retrospective. In it, you are allowed to rethink the moral of the stories you have told yourself about yourself in the past. Then it walks you through a process of reframing your life narrative. Finding Your Story is short and easy to read, while potentially offering you and others life-enhancing, or even transformational, personal insights.

This book also could help counselors and psychologists use the 12-archetype model with clients. See the blog section for more from me, the author’s take, and in the Storywell section, from the publisher. It is available on Amazon and from the Myers & Briggs Foundation website, Myersbriggs.org.

This newsletter is, overall, a Finding Your Story celebration. As you scroll through the newsletter, you will find out more information about Hugh’s book plus other groundbreaking work. The From Storywell section includes links to two articles about Hugh’s book, plus information about a new 12-archetype book by David Hulings: Trust! Using Archetypal Language to Repair Broken Trust (2023).

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In the Blogosphere also includes two blogs about Hugh’s book, one from me about its uses and one from the author himself about the power of his method, including his use of evocative stories from myth or folklore in every major section of the book. Of course, this section also continues to let you in on what’s new in my work on the Jester archetype in America today, as it is expressed in shadowy or shadow ways. It also includes exciting guest series: Priscilla Hobbs’s rich exploration of the 12 archetypes in the Harry Potter books; Dori Koehler’s new and breakthrough insights about archetypes in LA Disneyland; and, also new, Judy Brown and my dialogues about the archetypal energies in her poems, which are both very deep and insightful and also very popular and in demand.

I also want you to know that the PMAI® and all its supporting materials, including my book (What Stories Are You Living? Discover Your Archetypes – Transform Your Life) are now published by the Myers & Briggs Foundation. I’ve also been pleased with how The Hero Within, Awakening the Heroes Within, and The Hero and the Outlaw continue to be translated into more and more languages. And, my new book draft is finally coming together in ways that make me sit at the computer and grin. More about that in the next newsletter.

From Storywell‍

This quarterly article is written by Kesstan Blandin, the Vice President of the Center for Applications of Psychological Type (CAPT), the publisher of the PMAI® instrument. In that role, Kesstan is the editor of Storywell.com, the official website of the PMAI®. She also teaches at Pacifica Graduate Institute.

The big news at Storywell is the publication of Hugh K. Marr’s newest book, Finding Your Story: Using Archetypes to Guide Your Personal Journey, released in October 2023. We published a few articles highlighting the content, process, and how different people would use Finding Your Story. Kesstan Blandin wrote two articles based on interviews she had with Hugh as the book was being developed. These pieces emphasize the journey Finding Your Story guides us in and gives examples from the more than 35 exercises the reader engages. Carol Pearson published a review article on Hugh’s book early this year, sharing her excitement and demonstrating the depth of the process with stories from her life.

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Another new book incorporating the PMAI® archetypes was published recently by PMAI® facilitator and executive development coach David Hulings: Trust! Using Archetypal Language to Repair Broken Trust (2023). His article shares the basic themes of trust with all 12 archetypes and how to use them to establish trust with others.

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Storywell has an active social media presence where we are spreading the word about the Pearson-Marr archetype system on LinkedIn (StoryWell PMAI®), Instagram (@storywell_pmai), and Facebook (StoryWell). Follow us!

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Links to articles:

Storywell - Hugh Marr: Master Storyteller
Storywell - Transform Your Stories; Transform Your Life
Storywell - PMAI Archetypes and Trust

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Recommended Reading

When I was the provost and then president of Pacifica, senior faculty member Cynthia Hale took over the important task of leading our learning assessment efforts. In addition to being just good academic practice, this was essential for our upcoming WASC accreditation renewal review. Of course, this also gave me the chance to work closely with her, which was a great delight. I always recommend her latest academic book, The Red Place: Transforming Past Traumas Through Relationships, but today I’m thrilled to share that she has just published a book for children or the child in all or any of us.

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Cynthia’s expertise includes having been a child psychologist and a mom and grandmother. She knows how children learn and she also understands how many common events in modern life are anxiety-producing for kids. But, of course, her book does not talk about anxiety or comfort children directly. As does all great children’s literature, her book just tells a good story about kitty cats that children (or the rest of us) will identify with. Here’s what Cynthia says about this book.

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Bean and Bubbles Together, the first book in the "Stories of Change" series of children’s picture books, is about how we can find strength by facing tough times together. Within the stunningly illustrated pages by Larry Vigon, the uplifting story follows the journey of two cats who start as unlikely friends. When everything around them changes, Bean and Bubbles learn to comfort each other on a challenging journey. Together, the two kitties grow stronger and more resilient.  Imaginatively experiencing frightening change fosters strength and resilience in children, as well as in ourselves.If these themes interest you, you can join Cynthia at Substack for Stories of Change, where she will post occasionally about inspirations and events. It’s free.‍

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In the Blogosphere‍

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My colleagues and I are excited to continue to bring you our thoughts about how we see archetypes in play in the world around us, both in the realm of politics and in popular culture. I hope you click over and check them out. ‍

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Blogs about Hugh Marr’s Finding Your Story‍‍

Carol’s Blog

‍In this blog, Find Your Story: Transform Your Life!, I continue to express my excitement about Hugh’s new book and discuss possible applications of Hugh’s work. I remind you of Hugh’s expertise and the kind of wisdom he shares in this easy-to-read workbook. I highlight the way this book utilizes the power of popular stories to help us find the narratives that return the reader to the “them” of past moments. This powerful therapeutic tool can help us heal from past traumas and live our best futures. I give this book my highest recommendation!

‍Hugh’s Blog

‍Hugh has also been gracious enough to write his own blog for my blogsite: Finding Your Story. He begins with a Once Upon a Time type Grimm Brothers fairy tale. After a thorough retelling of the tale, he analyzes some of the archetypal resonance of the Magician and Caregiver archetypes in it. He highlights the fairy tale as an example of how his book utilizes the story as a therapeutic tool for transformation. We hope this analysis will whet your appetite for the book!

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‍Carol Pearson Series ‍

America Series Jester Blogs I continue to develop my thoughts on the stories that drive America with two blogs on the Jester archetype. I feel that Jester energy is integral to the perspective the American psyche needs to develop if we want to heal the rifts that continue to plague us.

In my first blog, American Happiness and the Jester Archetype: Blog One, I explore the way the Jester shows up in American culture through lifelong joviality and a sense of easy familiarity. I offer my definition of what it means to pursue happiness and discuss the role of the medieval Jester as a truthteller. Through that definition, I suggest that American culture needs to access the energy of the jovial truthteller if it desires to bring people together and manifest happiness.

In my second biog, American Happiness and the Jester Archetype: Blog Two, I explore the concept of freedom and of the Jester as a truthteller. Jesters cannot be restricted. They require freedom to roam and freedom to transcend cultural norms. The Jester archetype brings with it subversion of these kinds of norms. As an example of this energy in motion, I return to the 1950s, as I discuss the constricting patriarchal structures of the McCarthy era. This unleashed, on the left and the right, boys retreating from responsibility--the beat poets on the left and cowboy stories on the right. Today, I would add a mention of Ken in the Barbie movie. Over time, the responsible Jester is what we need to develop greater quality of life. What I did not include, but mention to you now, is how a Jester is emerging in its primal, irresponsible forms, as is happening with the MAGA Republicans in the House of Representatives, who are called clowns by Democrats and traditional Republicans alike. Will that energy evolve into the kind of Jester needed today? We will see.

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‍Priscilla Hobbs Harry Potter Series‍‍

Idealist‍

Priscilla Hobbs continues her series on archetypes of Harry Potter with this exploration of the Idealist through the delightful Luna Lovegood. She’s a quirky young woman who becomes a dear friend and fierce defender of Harry. She first appears reading her father’s magazine, a conspiracy theory-minded serial called The Quibbler, but the audience soon realizes that there’s more to Luna than her eccentric dress and off-the-wall theories. Luna has had many losses in her life, and because of that, she can empathize with Harry’s loss. She believes him when he insists that Voldemort has returned, but even in the approaching darkness, she never loses her sense of whimsy. As Priscilla reminds us, “Idealists are not always rewarded within society, but they bring an optimism to even the darkest time because they simply experience the world differently.” As a counterweight to the heaviness of much of the rest of the series, Luna Lovegood reminds us to value our differences, as it’s in our differences that we find our strengths.

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‍Koehler Disneyland Series‍

My longtime colleague and friend Dori Koehler has returned to our blog space with her new series on Disneyland. In this series, she examines the twelve archetypes of the PMAI® through the intersection between park patrons and the narratives at play in the parks.  ‍

Introduction‍

She begins this series with an introduction to who she is and why Disneyland is relevant to her. In making that point, she also argues that it’s important that any analysis of American culture take Disney’s narratives seriously because Disney is one of America’s most prominent mythmakers. This short blog orients the series and discusses the importance of this tiny theme park in Southern California, which grew to become an icon and a template used across the world.‍

The Magician‍

Of course, any analysis of the PMAI® archetypes at Disneyland must begin with the Magician. Disney’s myths are synonymous with magic. The term is present in everything they do. In her blog on the Magician, Dori explores the etymological root of the term magic. She suggests that the term itself is a vehicle for empowerment and transformation, arguing that this is the reason why Disney utilizes it. She begins by discussing the conflation between Mickey Mouse, the Magician archetype, and the cultural relevance thereof.She then explores the presence of the Magician archetype in the wildly popular fireworks show Wondrous Journeys created for the Disney 100 celebration in 2023, offering a short walkthrough of the show’s statement on Disney’s 100 years of animation and a correlation with Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. Ultimately, she argues that Disney’s message IS the final message of the show. “What will you do with YOUR magic?” She suggests that understanding this call to magic is the key to Disney’s lasting connection with the public. ‍

Coming Soon: Creator‍

Dori’s next blog with take up a line from a show called World of Color One at Disney California Adventure. World of Color One was created to celebrate the 100^th anniversary of The Walt Disney Company in 2023. She will argue that the lyric from that show, “someone has to start it,” is the essence of the Creator archetype as she explores the phenomenon of the live streamers and content creators in the parks and the way they are re-crafting echoes of the American Dream through their work at The Disneyland Resort. Stay tuned for this blog soon.

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‍Judy Brown’s Poem Series‍

Most recently, my dear friend and poet laureate of our website Judy Brown has offered to create a series for our website. Her work is deeply archetypal. It offers a complementary literary counterpoint to all the cultural analysis we do on the site. I’m grateful she has agreed to do this and am excited to share it with you! Judy is a poet, leadership educator, author, speaker, and coach whose work revolves around the themes of leadership, change, dialogue, and creativity. She is particularly interested in the inner dimensions of leadership and the roots of authenticity.Her first poem in this series, titled Fire, explores the relationship between intentionality and fire. It reminds us that we must craft space between our psycho-spiritual firewood if we want the metaphorical oxygen we need to access for psychological growth to seep into our space. Check out the short discussion between Judy’s thoughts and my own posted below the poem. It’s a rich read. I’d love to know what you think.‍

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An Invitation‍

I welcome and encourage your comments on any of the blogs posted on my blogsite, several of which have inspired a rich exchange of ideas. Also, if you have an idea for a blog that you might like to submit, please send me an email with a brief summary and I will let you know whether it is suitable for my blogsite and, if so, what guidelines you should follow in preparing it. Because my current blogs highlight ideas about bringing Americans together, I would appreciate your passing them on to others who also want an end to the culture wars.

In addition to my blogsite, you can find many of my blogs on Psychology Today and the Depth Psychology Alliance, and you are invited to make comments on the former and on the latter if you are a member. The easiest way to learn when a new blog goes up on my blogsite or any of the others on which I post is to visit my website or follow me on Facebook at Carol S. Pearson, Ph.D. Posts will inform you of the topic and how to access it. I also invite you to follow me on Instagram @carolspearsonphd and let me know what is going on with you.As always, please feel free to forward this newsletter to others who might be interested.

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Blessings,

Carol S. Pearson