Fairy Tales and Psychology

Fairy tales and psychology have an intense relationship. Because fairytales and psychology both deal within the mind, they are clearly inter-related. Even though your brain is always trying to make sense of things, it is the collection of repressed memories and experiences that create the fairy tale stories. The fact that this mental process occurs has caused many prolific minds to come up with different theories as to how the two worlds of imagination and science coincide.

The two most important minds, Freud and Jung, both talked about the psyche of fairy tales and where they might originate. Freud believed that fairy tales originate from the Id, or primary process . It is in the unconscious where the most impulsive thoughts come from. The saying, "let your imagination run wild", fits this theory perfectly. When one is free to their imagination, it is impossible what the outcome will be. In this instance, fairytales for the ages are a result of one's imagination.
Jung inferred that fairytales are all universal because of a "collective unconscious". As stated before through Freud, instead of everyone having an individual, unique unconscious pattern, Jung proposes that everyone is connected through their unconscious. If you think about it, most, if not all fairytales have the same recurring themes. We are all connected through our unconscious, which was furthermore assumed that this was a genetic/biological phenomenon.

To put these fairytales into practice, psychotherapists place their patients in the stories in order to connect to them on a more interpersonal level. Because most people know how fairytales go, and how useful they can be, it is easy for a psychotherapist to relate to the patient and further help them in whatever way they can.

Fairytales and psychology go hand in hand. It is difficult to not relate one to the other...