Goddesses in Everywoman: Powerful Archetypes in Women's Lives

The book "Goddesses in Everywoman: Powerful Archetypes in Women's Lives" offers a profound exploration of Greek mythology and its connection to the attributes of goddesses that can be found within women. The author, Jean Shinoda Bolen, provides a comprehensive breakdown of seven goddesses and their corresponding emotional and behavioral patterns. This book not only helps readers gain a better understanding of themselves but also enables them to recognize and appreciate the goddesses within other women. Through her years of clinical work, Bolen presents compelling portraits of these goddesses, allowing readers to have moments of recognition and self-discovery. By framing these behavioral patterns as goddesses, the author empowers women and highlights their inherent strength and wisdom. This book is a testament to the optimism, courage, and hope that can be found within every woman. The author's writing style is engaging and accessible, making it easy for readers to grasp the concepts and insights presented. Each chapter delves into the mythology, attributes, and ways to cultivate or activate each goddess archetype. Additionally, the book explores the influence of these archetypes in different stages of a woman's life, including childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. While the book is not without its flaws, such as subjective theories and occasional lack of support, it remains a valuable resource for self-reflection and personal growth. The author's exploration of the goddess Persephone as the Maiden could have been further expanded to include her role as Queen of the Underworld. However, these minor shortcomings do not diminish the overall impact and value of the book. In conclusion, "Goddesses in Everywoman" is a classic that continues to resonate with readers. It offers a deep understanding of the archetypes of feminine consciousness and encourages women to embrace and embody these goddesses within themselves. This book is highly recommended for anyone seeking self-knowledge and a greater understanding of the women in their lives. It provides invaluable insights into the universal female archetypes that shape and characterize the experiences of most women.

The book helped me clarify some of my thoughts about my feminine nature and validate some of my feelings about what ought to be a woman. It is an easy to read book in which the author provided invaluable knowledge about female multifaceted expressions of our inner world, and that made me wiser. Every woman should read it to improve her decision-making abilities and learn to live and love better.

This is the first book I read that was related to Jungian psychology. It gives many insights into our inner psychologycal patterns, seen throught the lens of the Greek Godesses. It offer some really good perspectives, in an anecdotal and highly entertaining way. It is particularly useful to women, as it shows that psychological patterns that are usually considered to be masculine need not be at all. Thus, it puts into question many of the assumptions we have about femininity and masculinity. I highly recommend it to anyone.

A few months ago I went to an astrology who suggested this book to me, and commented that he saw a lot of Persephone in me. I've always had an interest in Greek mythology, so I bought it. And now I'm not entirely sure how to write this review. As you probably already know, this book is about Greek goddesses, and how the archetypes of each one can be found in every woman. Some woman may only have one goddess archetype, or two, or three, or four, etc. Different archetypes might come to light at different stages of a woman's life. Jean Bolen really goes in depth to analyze each archetype. She goes over the three groups of goddesses: virgin (Artemis, Athene, and Hestia), vulnerable (Hera, Demeter, and Persephone), and alchemical (aphrodite gets her own category because she shows traits of both virgin and vulnerable goddesses). Bolen goes over the mythology of each archetype, who they are as an archetype, what they're most known for (Athena's chapter has subcategories like "the craftswoman" and "the father's daughter"), how to cultivate or activate this goddess in ourselves. Each chapter goes over how someone with that archetype is like in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, what the parents of that archetype are like, relationships, sexuality, marriage, psychological difficulties, ways to grow, and much more. I was surprised by the amount of information Bolen was able to put one book. Not only are there individual chapters for each goddess, but there are chapters like "which goddess gets the golden apple" or how to understand the archetypes in you and use them to your advantage. Overall, the book was easy to understand, and very insightful. It wasn't perfect, there were parts I thought could have been better. I would have liked to read more about Persephone as Queen of the Underworld, because Persephone as the Maiden seemed to overtake that chapter. I can see why this book wouldn't be for everyone. Sometimes her theories can come off as subjective or unsupported. But I think anyone can learn a lot about themselves from this book, as long as you keep an open mind.

Fabulous - Jean Shinoda Bolen really is an amazing author - She explains these Archetypes in a way that understanding the significance of the premise and character is so easy to follow - I use it as a daily read - feather through the pages and let my figure stop on the page of the day - amazing how this works so great for me, spot on! I am 75 and can really acknowledge the stages of my life for several of the Goddesses - This book is a true GEM and really should be given to a young lady to read - also for parents as tool in understanding for raising Girls - Thank you Jean such a worthy ready!

Every woman needs to read this! I’m sharing this with all my clients.

incredibly insightful. every woman needs to read this!

Really awesome book....help under a lot about my own nature. Thank you.

made me stop and think so many times

Amazing book. Ms. Bolen is perhaps the only author and researcher that has elaborated so much in the ancient archetypes, as these were always present in women of the past and of the present. The Gods and Goddesses of ancient Greece, as mentioned in the introduction of the book, is a "myth that never was but is always happening", meaning that the personalities of the ancient Gods and Goddesses summarize the fundamental archetypes through which humans think and act, even if they are not conscious of it. What that means practically, is that you can explain every woman's behavior, needs and motives if you match her with her main archetype, or - in case of more complicated characters - the combination of archetypes active in her. This book gave my crazy insights that helped me understandd the character, behavior and needs - as these were inner programmed by their currently active archetype - in the women around me. My mother, my sister, my friends, and all other women I have ever met. But the most life changing insight of all, was the advice given: if you feel that the shadows of an archetype mess with your life and happiness, and limit your growth, the best way to break free from these limitations and grow, is to activate other archetypes, gods or goddesses, that compliment you and provide you with the qualities that you lack. If you are interested in educating yourself with psychology theories of explaining different human personalities, please please give this book and its companion book "Gods in Everyman" a try. They will change the way you view people. You will never again be under the impression that there are millions of different personalities around you. With the knowledge of the 16 main archetypes, you can easily categorize people in one or some of them, and thus you will be in position to understand them better, to know what they want and what they need, to know if their personality is compatible with your own personality. But most importantly, you will be able to understand why you do and like the things you do and like, why you repeat certain patterns, and why you are drawn to specific types of people.

This book was recommended to me by my therapist. It's an engaging and enlightening read, to say the least. You won't ever take yourself casually as a woman after reading this. Makes you revere everything about being a woman, and every single woman you meet.

As I really liked this one I now look forward to read the one on Gods. Such a gem ..