Motherhood Is The True Hero’s Journey

Lisa Marchiano, Jungian psychoanalyst and author of ‘Motherhood: Facing and Finding Yourself,’ on fairy tales, maternal rage, and more

Mary Cassatt, The Bath, 1891; Soft-ground etching with aquatint and drypoint on paper, 12 3/8 x 9 5/8 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay; Photo by Lee Stalsworth

I was never alone during the pandemic. There was an infant always attached somewhere to my body. On long walks, we enjoyed the company of Lisa, Deb, and Joseph, hosts of the podcast This Jungian Life.

I found my new companions in a fit of new mom googling—not about the baby’s nap schedule or diaper rash or nutritional needs—but about me. I was keeping a human being alive, fed, clean, happy. I didn’t need to hear, “You got this, mama!” That much, I knew. I longed for a maternal figure to tend to my insides, someone who understood how the experience of motherhood was stretching me, and moreover, why it mattered.

Jungian psychoanalyst Lisa Marchiano and her co-hosts were having the conversation I wanted about motherhood. Not motherhood as a sleep challenge, shopping trip, or endurance test but motherhood as a depth initiation.

In May, Marchiano published Motherhood: Facing and Finding Yourself, an intelligent and…