The Healing Power of the Imagination

In this conceptual article, the author demonstrates how fairy tales, folk tales and myths offer the child medicine for the unconscious. Through the power of the imagination children develop the ability to incorporate an image of God as eternal presence and limitless consciousness, a sense of object constancy, a sense of self to help battle the intrinsic hardships of childhood, and a map for the journey of oneness, separation, and reunification with oneness at a higher level of consciousness. The article also calls upon the power of a particular therapeutic fairy tale from a collection by this author and demonstrates its value as a teaching aid in the classroom, a tool for psychotherapists who work with children and adults who were traumatized as children, and a resource for parents in the development of their children's spirituality.