HEALING NARRATIVES OF WOMEN: A Psychological Perspective

Everyone goes through cycles of suffering and healing in one’s life. Pain and suffering take their toll, yet healing is not far behind. The present work is an endeavour to generate propositions about psychological healing. Working within the social constructionist approach, this book engages with the healing narratives of eight women who had encountered intense tragedies in their personal lives, and slowly but surely emerged out of them. Some broad generalizations about the healing process have been arrived at, by locating the nonconscious as its epicentre.

The concept of nonconscious includes in its gamut the whole range from being a repository of repressed memories, an efficient information processing system of the mind, a source of creativity, wisdom, spirituality, and still more. A churning model of consciousness has been proposed to explore what possibly entails in the transition from suffering to healing. The stories of the eight women lend themselves to understand how the healing process got activated in their innermost recesses and who healed them. This work alludes to the presence of a healer within, who works in silent, imperceptible ways to restore us. Dealing with the universal experiences of suffering and healing, this book caters to a general readership, as well as to counsellors, researchers and students pursuing their interest in this area.

Jyoti Anand, Ph.D. in psychology, is a practising counsellor based in Allahabad. She has publications in the areas of suffering, psychological healing and belief in the theory of Karma. She is interested in developing indigenous approaches to counselling.