According to Carl Jung’s analytical psychology, if we manage to overgrow the struggle between light and darkness we can heal our souls. Like in the fairytales the struggle between good and evil is a constant part of our lives. The illness comes when we try to accept one of them and reject the other, Bulgarian psychotherapist Silvia Marinova who treats injured human psyche with the help of fairytales told Radio Bulgaria.

The idea about this non-traditional treatment method, which has been gaining huge popularity and attracting many fans, came at first as an inner need and feeling that fairytales have huge potential to feed our souls. The effect multiplies when fairytales are shared, including for those who organize the treatment.

When the treatment is in the form of a seminar, the people who attend the event forget about real life with the help of the characters in the fairytales and immerse into the vastness of their soul.

The therapy is usually followed by practical lessons which allow people to take the characters out of the fairytales – they make plasticine figures, draw, etc. We discuss the characters from the fairytales. Thus, people are able to make the right connection with them and see how these characters live in them. The seminar guarantees many emotions, because in the course of three to five hours people are able to sink into the world of the characters and their own inner world, choose the experience they need and talk with their soul through the characters of the fairytales.

People often associate themselves with a given character from the fairytales and the reactions to this character show whether they have the unconscious need to integrate it into themselves. We start with questions such as what is your most favorite or least favorite fairytale, which characters left a permanent mark into their child memories and whether they changed later. Silvia Marinova contends that people change their perception of the plot and the characters of their favorite fairytale over the years. It shows how the child once interpreted the story and how it was locked into its memory. When adults read these fairytales again year later they are able to see new aspects that once remained hidden, Silvia Marinova went on to say

When adults read the fairytales again they seem to look brighter and in stronger connection with themselves, Silvia Marinova specifies. People wake up some creative forces which allow them to find new solutions for certain life situations. It was proven that fairytales help people even if they avoid analyzing them. Some projects for reading of fairytales to people with mental problems and disorders were launched. Carl Jung saw the healing effect of the psyche in the fairytales, the myths and the dreams. The overall personality is at the core of the fairytales and the Jungian theory. We bear all aspects of what was and what will remain in the human nature. The more we integrate them, the more independent we become from the outside world, yet we are meanwhile part of it. This happens though a natural process of in- out communication which allows us to feel as individuals and at the same time overgrow ourselves and live in comfort with the outside world. The acute resistance to imperfections in life is gone, because you feel them inside yourself. You know what you went through to accept these imperfections and become slightly better in what you are.

We often ignore fairytales, because we think they are written for children only, but they really do wonders with the child psyche. It is important to read fairytales to children, but they should not look at the images of the characters on the books. Thus, they will learn to shape these images in their own minds. The adults should know that the child in them also needs to hear stories wrapped in the symbolism of fairytales. If we think that action books and movies can satisfy these needs, we will remain disappointed, because metaphor gives way to literalism there. That is why actions do not have healing effect.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov